The April 2011 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Evelyne of the blog Cheap Ethnic Eatz. Evelyne chose to challenge everyone to make a maple mousse in an edible container. Prizes are being awarded to the most creative edible container and filling, so vote on your favorite from April 27th to May 27th at http://thedaringkitchen.com!

When the challenge was announced and I knew we were required to make a maple mousse, I couldn’t help but think about maple bars/donuts. Most maple bars are just iced with a maple frosting, but some are filled with pastry cream and iced with maple frosting. I contemplated using the Daring Bakers Donut recipe and making filled maple bars, but I decided I’d rather have a baked shell instead of a fried one.

So I made my containers with frozen puff pastry. I cut the puff pastry dough into six rectangles. I trimmed each edge of each rectangle and affixed it to the edge with a little beaten egg white. Then I egg washed the top of the bars and baked them on a hot pizza stone at 425º for about 5 – 10 minutes until they were puffy and golden brown. I pricked the center with a fork both before and after baking to create a well to fill with the maple mousse.

I drizzled a little hot fudge on the plate and sprinkled a few chocolate jimmies on the top to dress it up. This was a big hit with the family and I could have easily polished off more than one of these scrumptious pastries.

I do have a little leftover mousse in the fridge. I’ve been pondering whether I should make a run to the donut store and buy some maple bars to fill.

Yield: 6 bars

Puff Pastry Maple Bars

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Cook Time 1 hour

Total Time 1 hour

Ingredients

• 1 cup pure maple syrup (not maple-flavoured syrup)
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1 package unflavoured gelatine
• 1 1/2 cups whipping cream (35% fat content)

Instructions

1. Bring maple syrup to a boil then remove from heat.
2. In a large bowl, whisk egg yolks and pour a little bit of the maple syrup in while whisking (this is to temper your egg yolks so they don’t curdle). Add warmed egg yolks to hot maple syrup until well mixed.
3. Measure 1/4 cup of whipping cream in a bowl and sprinkle it with the gelatine. Let it rest for 5 minutes.
4. Place the bowl in a microwave for 45 seconds (microwave for 10 seconds at a time and check it in between) or place the bowl in a pan of barely simmering water, stir to ensure the gelatine has completely dissolved. Whisk the gelatine/whipping cream mixture into the maple syrup mixture and set aside.
5. Whisk occasionally for approximately an hour or until the mixture has the consistency of an unbeaten raw egg white. (Mine was thickened at about 45 minutes and 1 hour was probably too long.)
6. Whip the remaining cream. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream into the maple syrup mixture. Fold in the remaining cream and refrigerate for at least an hour. Remove from the fridge and divide equally among your edible containers. (I had more mousse than I needed for 6 shells.)

Thanks Evelyne for a fun challenge! Please visit the Daring Kitchen to see a slideshow of the fabulous edible containers the Daring Bakers created for this challenge and additional recipes.