Mousse/Moose Creations

It’s Moose Tracks day. I find this a very interesting name for an ice cream, it’s definitely very Canadian and it’s perfect because it’ll be Canada Day in a few days so you can make your mousse/moose treat to celebrate. The first thing came to our minds were cute little moose and chocolate mousse so we’re combining to the two to make a divine and cute treat.

We decided to make chocolate mousse in chocolate cups topped with a homemade cute little moose toppers.

To make the moose toppers, Nicole used her handy dandy Silhouette. We picked out a moose we liked and cut it out on red, brown, and white cardstock and then we glued a toothpick between two of the moose heads to make a nice little topper. (They're also great for cupcakes!) It’s super easy; take a look...

First off, you’ll want to make your chocolate edible cups so that they are properly set.

You’ll need a 6 or 12 cup muffin pan. Fill each one of the cups with water and place a popsicle stick in each cup. Freeze until completely solid. We also did some mini muffin cups as well.

We did this a few night before we made the mousse just to make sure that they set.

Right before you are ready to “make” your cups, melt the chocolate. We are melting some white and some semi-sweet chocolate so we can have a variety of cups.

Take your muffin tins out of the freezer and let them warm up for only a minute.

Now remove the ice molds from the tins and submerge in the melted chocolate of your choice. Make sure you don’t fully submerge just dip up to the top rim.

Place the molded chocolate on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Give the chocolate a minute or so to set and then they should just wiggle off of the ice and you should have a cute little chocolate cup.

***Ok, so above was how they were supposed to work, but in real life...not so much. We ended up improvising and using another technique to make the cups which worked just fine. Our ice molded perfectly but we had a problem with taking them out. The ice melted so fast that they were wet, so when we dipped them into the chocolate, they didn't stick and over time made our chocolate chunky. After trying quite a few times, we ended up with a few successful ones and then Nicole used the chocolate to coat the inside of a muffin liner and then we put them in the fridge to harden. It worked out fine in the end. Maybe you'll have more success than us so give both ways a try and see what happens.***

Now to make the mousse for the moose to go into.

You will need:

300 grams of semisweet chocolate chips

4 eggs

½ sugar

2 cups of whipped cream, more if you want to put some on top

Mix the eggs with the sugar and whip until medium peaks form, about 8 minutes. 

While whipping, melt the chocolate chips.

Whisk the chocolate into the whipped eggs and sugar. Set aside in a large bowl.

Whip the 2 cups of whipping cream. When it looks very thick, take out 1 cup and fold into the egg and chocolate mix and then whip the rest of the cream until peaks form and fold the rest into the chocolate mixture.

Now this is the part where you’ll scoop your mousse into the little chocolate cups if you make them or you can scoop it into ramekins to set as well. 

Make sure you let your mousse set for about 3 hours in the fridge before serving. You can top with just the moose toppers or add on some whipped cream and fruit if you like. 

Manitoba - Picture Road Trip

Manitoba is the final stop on our summer road trip of the provinces. Today we will share with you some popular sights and stops to see if you take a visit there so sit back and enjoy the tour of Manitoba.

Photos in order from top to bottom: Assiniboine Park Zoo, Gimili Viking Statue, Stella's Cafe and Bakery, The Forks, Riding Mountain National Park, Thermea by Nordik Spa-Nature, The Forks, New Iceland Heritage Museum, Minnedosa, Red River, Mere Hotel, The Park Theatre, Exchange District, Churchill, Canadian Museum for Human Rights, Gorge Creek Trail

Quebec - Poutine

This is going to be a yummy post. We’re gonna make poutine for our Friday night game night snack.

Poutine originated in Quebec in the 1950’s. A traditional poutine consists of medium thick French fries, fresh bite sized room temperature, curds, and brown thin gravy (usually a combination of chicken and beef).

There are so many poutine variations nowadays . Some people will add chives and bacon bits, pulled pork, sausage, chicken, and in some places, even caviar and truffles are put on top. 

We are going to make the classic poutine for you tonight and one with a little twist.

We’re keeping things simple and we have some straight cut frozen French fries that we are going to crisp up in the oven so that the outsides are nice and crunchy, but the inside will still be soft inside.

Next, we have some beef gravy that we are warming up and getting all of the lumps out of. For a quick poutine just defrost some leftover gravy like we are doing. You can also make your gravy from scratch; take a look at the links at the bottom of the page that we found with some poutine how tos.

Make sure to take your curds out of the fridge so that they can get to room temperature. Apparently room temperature is the ideal temperature to be adding your curds to your poutine. The warmth of the gravy and fries will soften them without melting them completely or leaving them too hard.

Layer your fries first on the plate/bowl, then add the curds, and then pour on the gravy. That’s a classic poutine.

http://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2015/03/ultimate-perfect-poutine-fries-cheese-curds-gravy-recipe.html

https://www.seasonsandsuppers.ca/authentic-canadian-poutine-recipe/