Easter Egg Mousse Cups

It's no secret - I am a very busy lady. I wish I could say it's because I lead an exciting life, but I can't. No, that's not true - today I cracked open a double-yolked egg. Anyway, spare time is hard to come by and over the four day Easter long weekend, I could only find four consecutive hours to shop for ingredients and cook. This really put a kibosh on my dream of making something extravagant like a simnel cake (oh cake with balls of marzipan, fate will bring us together one day).

So I decided to turn something simple into something exciting: chocolate easter eggs, filled with chocolate mousse, filled with a choice of toppings.

I used my chocolate mousse recipe with white chocolate.

Even though it sounds dead easy, there was a little drama. After buying two easter egg moulds from Wheel & Barrow ($6.95 each), I got home and realised they were useless unless you wanted giant balls of solid chocolate. I cheated and drove back to Chatswood Chase to buy pre-made chocolate eggs, but if you want to make easter eggs yourself, opt for thin and flexible plastic moulds and use lots of oil.

The fillings were the most fun to make, and Dan even helped out! After the beautiful Easter dinner Dan's mum prepared for us, Dan and I served up these babies while everyone picked which topping they wanted.

Butterscotch sauce (recipe courtesy of smitten kitchen)

¼ cup butter

½ cup packed brown sugar

½ cup heavy cream

½ teaspoon sea salt

1½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Melt butter over medium heat and add sugar, heavy cream and salt. Combine well. Remove from heat and add vanilla extract. You can add more salt to taste. I love the contrast of sweet and salty in dessert.

Lime and tapioca pudding

100g white chocolate

½ cup heavy cream

Zest of 1 lime

Juice of ½ a lime

2 tablespoons tapioca seeds

Simmer tapioca seeds in water for 15 minutes or until they turn translucent. Heat chocolate, cream and lime zest over low heat. Combine well. Remove from heat and gradually whisk in lime juice (like you would when whisking lemon juice into hollandaise sauce). Drain tapioca and stir in. This has the wonderful texture of rice pudding and tastes heavenly.

Raspberry with vanilla almond praline

1 punnet raspberries

1¼ cup sugar

Handful of candied vanilla almonds

Heat raspberries and ¼ cup of sugar over low heat for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Push through a fine sieve and you have a raspberry coulis. Set aside. Heat 1 cup of sugar over low heat until it caramelises. Place the almonds in a ziplock bag and crush with a mallet or rolling pin. Lay out in a flat layer on a baking tray, lined with greaseproof paper. Pour caramel over and set in the fridge. Score the praline and break into pieces to serve.

Salted duck egg yolk

I was most excited about this one purely because I was so curious about whether or not it'd taste good with chocolate (it works with moon cake, so why not other desserts?). You can buy salted duck eggs from Asian grocery stores or you can make them yourself by preserving duck eggs in salt water for 3-4 weeks. I love the texture of salted duck egg yolk, it's so unique. It's not as dry as chicken egg yolk (when cooked through), it's firm to the touch but it melts in your mouth. As I suspected, it worked amazingly well with the chocolate mousse. It was slightly sweet, slightly salty, and with the mousse it was like eating moon cake ice cream.

I hope everyone had a lovely Easter weekend. I cannot wait for the carnie food at the Royal Easter Show!