Vegan Chocolate Mousse in Cashew 'Cups'

It is no secret that I LOVE to bake. Typically, what I bake is determined by what we have in the pantry or what we're in the mood for. This is one of those instances where it was completely determined by the events we wanted to participate in...I'm not going to lie about it! If you are a food blogger who has never ever cooked/baked/photographed something that was not at all dictated by event(s), then seriously...hats off to you! But seriously...be honest...have you NEVER done it? Come on :P

This endeavor goes to two events:

Poornima's "Lets go Nuts-Cashews" and Holler's "Chocolate giveaway event".

Ingredients

For the cashew 'cups'

1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
2 tbsp cold butter, cut into tiny pieces
1/4 cup roasted cashews
1-2 tbsp chilled milk*
* add just enough to form a dough



















For the mousse

3/8 cup silken tofu
1/4 cup sugar
1/3 cup bittersweet chocolate

1. Preheat oven to 375F

2. Pulse the cashews, sugar and the flour a few times in a blender or a food processor until everything is combined into a fine powder. Make sure that the blender doesn't heat because this might cause the flour to stick to the walls.

3. Transfer this into a plate and incorporate the butter until a crumbly dough starts to form. Add enough milk to form a dough. It should be barely kneadable.

4. Divide this into 3 equal spheres. Roll each into 5-6 inch circles with a rolling pin. Place these into greased muffin pans to line the entire 'cup' and press the excess dough against the outer surface of the pan.

5. Fill these 'cups' with a 'filler' like rice or lentils because even before you press the second 'cup', you'll realize the first one has already started to come off! If you're a pro, then you could use something called pastry weights ;)

6. Bake for 15 mins. or until golden. Remove the muffin tray and let it cool until warm. At this stage, remove as much 'filler' as you can and then remove the cups from the muffin tray. Let them cool down to room temperature. Remove any filler which might be stuck to the inner walls in the meantime without breaking the cups.

7. While the cups are baking, melt the chocolate chips in a double boiler.

8. Drain the silken tofu to remove excess moisture. I used a couple of paper towels and pressed as gently as possible to remove some moisture.

9. Put this in a blender and add sugar to it. Blend until a uniform, creamy mixture is obtained.

10. Once the chocolate has melted, add it to the tofu 'cream' and pulse it a few more times. Taste it and adjust the amount of sugar as needed. You could also throw in a dash of vanilla extract. Once a nice uniform mixture is obtained, put this in a piping device or a ziploc bag and refrigerate for an hour or until nice and thick. Don't attach the plunger if you're refrigerating the piping device.

11. Pipe the mousse into the cups and refrigerate it until ready to serve.

The mousse came out quite rich and creamy. The cups weren't as crisp and crunchy as I wanted them to be. This recipe serves three 'cups'. I'd say that overall, this is very easy to make and is a nice idea for individual desserts and can be prepared ahead. And even weight watchers could afford to indulge in this because it is not as calorific as some other desserts out there. For every 'cup', you're probably consuming 1/9 cup flour, 1/6 cup sugar, 1/8 cup silken tofu, 1/9 cup chocolate and 2/3 tbsp butter. I don't think that should be more than 200 calories.

This dessert can be easily made vegan by substituting the milk with water and butter with oil or nut-butter for making the cups. The mousse, on the other hand, is certainly vegetarian...in fact vegan!

So here is another (relatively) guilt-free dessert from us ;) Please binge responsibly :D

UPDATES:

1) The indentations seen in the cups are from the moong daal (lentils) that I used as pastry weights.

2) I have a cup that can measure 1/8th of a cup. Do it three times and you got yourselves 3/8th of a cup ;)