DIY Chocolate Cups

 

One of my new favorite treats to make in the kitchen! I had a blast making these super cute and stylish dishes, and I highly recommend you taking it on before your next dinner party!

Basically these chocolate cups couldn’t get any easier in terms of prep work, ingredients, and procedure. You can do this alone or have even more fun by making it a project for two (I had my big Brother in town at the time, so he was my helper!). Lastly, and most importantly you can put whatever you want inside the chocolate cups when they are set… we all know everything goes well with chocolate, so pick your fancy!

You’ll need 1 bag of chocolate chips (I used semi-sweet, but you can use milk chocolate if you prefer), 12 balloons, 1 quart size heat proof bowl, cooking spray, parchment paper, a spoon, and anything edible you might like for decorating (optional).

Step 1:

Blow up, wash, and DRY your balloons. I made my brother do this part… he was entertained and yet still demanded chocolate samples for his efforts! I suppose that was expected!

The balloons should be inflated to approx. 4 inch balloons. This is the beginning of your discrepancy- picture the size chocolate cups you would like and inflate to size!  

Be sure the balloons are completely dry, water droplets are not your friend when it comes to trying to control melted chocolate!

Step 2:

Once you have your balloons set, get everything else ready (chop chocolate, grab spoons and paper towel, decide on sprinkles or other decorations). When you have your chocolate melted and hot, you are not going to have time to run around setting things right. Here an important step is to trim your parchment paper to sit inside your pans; your balloons are not very heavy so unleveled parchment paper hanging out over the sides can cause your balloons to tip over- painfully annoying!

Step 3:

Melt your chocolate (just chocolate, don’t put ANYTHING else in the bowl) you can do this either via a heat proof bowl over a simmering pot of water and now you don’t have to keep running back and forth to the microwave (and reduces possibility of burning the chocolate) OR you can simply do this cautiously in the microwave! I picked the microwave this particular time just to see what might happen!

Now take a spoonful of chocolate and make a chocolate circle on the parchment paper. This is your chocolate base.

Step 4:

Give the bottom of the balloon a quick blast of cooking spray. Using a paper towel lightly spread the spry evenly around the bottom of the balloon, basically to the size/perimeter of what you want you chocolate bowl to look like.

Step 5:

With even pressure dunk the balloon into the chocolate, lift and let any access drip off, and then swoop it around so the chocolate can settle evenly onto the balloon.

Now is the perfect time to add decorations as desired onto the warm chocolate. If you were really organized or had a second person helping, they could have been attending melting white chocolates or other candy melts to drizzle over the chocolate to add color, contrast, and texture to the chocolate coating.

For me however, I had bored my brother by now and was working solo. Therefore these candy pearls did the trick!

Step 6:

Plunge your decorated balloon down on top of the circle chocolate base. Hold for 10 seconds and then let go and allow to stand by itself. Leave it alone.

Step 7:

When you have filled up an entire sheet of balloons place them in the refrigerator to set. PLEASE put them in the refrigerator. I actually do not know why, but if you don’t refrigerate then you’ll get funky cups that are spotted and break… pictured below! Like I said, put these in the refrigerator until you are going to fill the cups and serve them.

Balloons Gone Bad!

Step 8:

After a minimum 2 hours in the fridge, remove the tray and grab a knife. You want to pierce the balloon at the top by the knot and slowly let the air come out. Then lightly start to pull the balloon away from the surface of the chocolate.

Step 9:

Fill the cups with whatever you choose. You could do anything from ice cream, to fresh fruit, to a mousse or pudding of your liking. Here I simply used chocolate pudding. A better picture probably would have come from butterscotch or something, but this will do for now!

Step 10:

You should know me well enough by now… Eat  :)

 

I hope you enjoyed this post; I look forward to hearing what you filled your chocolate cups with!

Posted in: Chocolate, Christmas Baking