Chocolate Flower Dessert Cups How-To

You Will Need:

• Dark or Milk Chocolate (either melting wafers or chopped bars)
• Colored Candy Melts OR White Chocolate dyed with Powder Food Color
• A plastic container or a double boiler to melt chocolate in
• Small balloons, blown up in 3-4 different sizes
• Filling for your cups (this can be pudding, mousse, fruit, or candies, etc.)
• Cookie Sheet lined with Parchment or Wax Paper
• Toothpicks
• Pastry Bag

Instructions:

1. Blow up the small balloons in 3-4 different sizes (sm, med, lg, extra lg). You will want the largest cup to mold the outside of your chocolate flower. So keep that in mind if you are making individual dessert cups or one large dessert.
2. Melt chocolate over a double boiler or in a microwave-safe container. Temper the chocolate. (Find out more about tempering chocolate by watching Kat Montgomery's instructional Chocolate Addict DVD!)
3. Keep chocolate warm by surrounding it with towels.
4. Melt white chocolate/colored candy melts. If you are using white chocolate, dye it after you have melted it down.
5. Scoop melted colored chocolate into a pastry bag.
6. Squirt colored chocolate in squiggly lines onto the tempered bowl of chocolate. Slightly swirl together with a toothpick.
7. Hold your largest balloon by the tied-off end and dip it into the chocolate mixture, rolling around so that about 1/4 of the way up the side of the balloon is covered. Don't go too high, or you won't be able to stick the other chocolate pieces inside.
8. Place the chocolate-dipped balloon on your parchment-lined cookie sheet. Hold for a few seconds to be sure it doesn't roll over, and then place the sheet in the refrigerator.
9. Repeat the process with the remaining balloons. For the smallest balloon, you can cover quite a bit of it to create a "bud" for the center of your flower.
10. Chill all cups in the fridge until set.
11. Once set, you can remove the balloons by gently peeling the chocolate away from the balloon surface and then sticking the balloon with a pin. Gently pull the rest of the balloon out of the chocolate mold.
12. Assemble your flower by placing the cups inside each other and using a small amount of the remaining colored chocolate in between the cups to secure.
13. Fill with fruit, mousse, pudding, or candies.

This tutorial and all the images are thanks to tikkido.com!