Dinners with my mother are my #1 excuse to sink way too much time into dessert, which is both a good and terrible thing. The good: I get to make fancy dessert! The bad: she expects fancy dessert. I’ve boxed myself in by setting the standard too high, which makes things like Mother’s day… tricky. How do I get fancier, short of sculpting a bust of my mother out of butter?
Since I’ve pretty much just been making cakes and entremets when she comes over, I decided the solution was a plated dessert. Because when things are small and individual they seem extra fancy.
My mom prefers classic flavors and LOVES dark chocolate. Raspberry + chocolate was the no brainer decision here, so it’s the one I made.
I used balloons to make chocolate bowls, but then I also filled the raspberry mousse into a balloon in lieu of using a mold.
Pro tip: fill your balloons over a bowl. My first balloon exploded, covering my entire chest and stomach area in pink goop and wasting half of the mousse I made. I happened to be wearing my nicest blouse. In retrospect, this was probably a poor decision.
On the bright side, I got the perfect temper on my first try, despite not using a thermometer. That’s practically magic! I’ll call it a wash.
