Flavoured Caramel Mousse (a.k.a Fake Maple Mousse!) in Almond Meringue Nests: Daring Bakers’ Challenge, April, 2011

It must be way past midnight of the 27th of April for Daring Bakers in Japan and Australia, while those on the west coast of the US are probably fortifying themselves with a cup of coffee to face the 27th. Here, in India, it’s past dinner time and I’ve just realised I should have posted my challenge by now. Since I don’t have too much time to think about or write up a detailed post if I want to meet the deadline, this is going to pretty much a “bare bones” sort of post.

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Notes

If you will take a look at this month’s challenge on the various Daring Bakers’ blogs you will see an astounding variety and some very creative edible containers that have been used to serve the Maple Mousse.

I’m afraid the closest I could get to doing anything like that was to make Almond Meringue Nests. Once again it was my daughter’s love for meringue that was partially responsible for this decision. The other part was that I couldn’t think of anything beyond chocolate for an edible serving suggestion!

I discovered that one needs about 2 tablespoons per egg white to make a good stiff meringue batter. By trying to keep to this at a minimum, and adding lemon juice to stabilize my meringue, I managed to prevent my meringue nests from becoming cloyingly sweet. But then, who ever heard of a meringue that wasn’t sweet?

If you will look closely at my meringue nests you will see they are "golden" rather than white because of being about 10 minutes longer in the oven than they should have. This didn't make any difference to the taste though. My nests also look slightly spotted which is the result of the high humidity that I live with here.

So I'm hoping that all future Daring Baker challenge hosts would be challenging us to bake stuff that doesn't need me to challenge the humidity which will get worse in the coming months of monsoon!

**Almond Meringue Nests.

There is no doubt what so ever that this mousse is sweet! And I understand that would have been the case even if I had used maple syrup. So if you have a sweet tooth and you would love to indulge it, then this is your dessert.

The mousse was good and I found the taste additions from the cocoa, coffee and fenugreek added an interesting twist to the caramel. Who knows, maybe I did get close to the taste of maple syrup after all. My daughter declared the mousse very pleasant, and crisp meringue never fails to please her! So this challenge was declared a reasonably good one, if not outstanding.

The light textured creamy mousse served in an equally airy but crisp almond meringue nest was an excellent combination. It wasn’t the most original combination of flavours or even a very creative edible serving bowl for the mousse but the softness and the crunch made a nice contrast in every bite.

For me personally, I’d have been happier if only I could make the meringue and the mousse a little less sweeter……

I'm giving away two cookbooks, and if you would like to try your luck at winning one of them then please leave a comment at the giveaway post. The giveaway is open to bloggers and non-bloggers world-wide till the midnight of the **30th of April, 2011.