Blini,Blini,Blini

This month's Chocolate with Francois challenge was his recipe for chocolate blinis. Linda from Diva Weigh chose this recipe and I'm so glad that she did .  I never made sweet blinis before and thought it would be similar to the savory ones I've made in the past. I was very wrong-the recipe itself was very easy to put together and the batter was so rich and delicious.  My challenge was flipping the blinis and gauging when they were ready to be flipped.  The little edges were bubbling and calling out to me, flip me, flip me. So I would try to flip and the chocolate would come oozing out from all edges.  My official tester enjoyed the blini mistakes and even though they looked all mushed and wrinkled like little chocolate baby cakes they still tasted incredibly rich.

 I try to  imagine the first person who decided  it would be a great idea to combine chocolate with eggs and create a chocolate blini.  Can you imagine the look on their face when they got the combination of ingredients just right and took that first bite.  That soft cake like exterior and the creamy chocolate interior.  These don't need butter or syrup,they are perfect just plain. But I thought wouldn't some caramelized bananas and a side of whipped cream just send them over the top?  And yes it did-what a natural combination of flavors.  This was my Sunday night dinner- I know it's not very healthy and certainly doesn't meet any food pyramid recommendations.  But it does meet my criteria and that's when in doubt eat chocolate ! 

Chocolate with Francois

This month's challenge was hosted by  Moogie of Moogie and Pap and the direction from Moogie was to make Francois Payard's  Chocolate Mousse (Presented in a different and creative way ) .  I thought of a zillion different ways to present the Mousse but seriously it's all been done before, tarts,tortes,frozen,baked in a cake,sandwiched between cookies and I'm sure somewhere along the line someone even tried to fry it !  So I just decided to go with the flow and do something I love and enjoy.  While I was picking up groceries this week I kept seeing all the fixings for strawberry shortcake and I thought what about raspberry shortcake with chocolate mousse instead of whipped cream and of course raspberries instead of strawberries.  So ta da I give you my take on Chocolate Mousse ,it will be the first time I have ever had it this way-Raspberry Shortcake with Chocolate Mousse ! 

I used my new miniature angel food cake pans and made tiny little angel food cakes.  Yes I'm one of those gadget girls when it comes to baking , aren't we all ?  I mean someday someone will be beating down my door for those little angel food cakes !  I used the recipe that came with the pan and they turned out OK,a little too spongy for my liking but not bad.  I made up some raspberry syrup from fresh raspberries and put that in the bottom of the serving bowl along with a layer of fresh raspberries.  I hollowed out an even larger opening in the center of the cake to make room for the chocolate mousse and filled it to the brim !  I drizzled more raspberry syrup over the whole thing and took chocolate ganache that I had left over from some cream puffs and drizzled that over the entire cake and topped it with a sweet little raspberry !  Yummy, way too rich and something I will only have occasionally-like maybe every Friday !  This challenge reminded me how much I love mousse-it's so light and sweet-it matches the personality of the little angel cakes !  So enjoy my sweet little angels !