Maple Mousse in Maple Pecan Bacon Cupcake Cups

THE DARING BAKERS’ APRIL 2011 CHALLENGE: MAPLE MOUSSE SERVED IN AN EDIBLE CONTAINER

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! of the blog

Maple mousse? Hmmmm maple is not one of my favourite things, thought that might actually be sacrilege to say that as a card-carrying Canadian. However, all my guys are fond of the stuff so I was pretty sure it would get eaten. I quite like the concept of the 'chowder in a bread bowl' and thought I could adapt that here. So, the Maple Pecan Bacon cupcake cup was created.

Peanut Butter Cookie Cupcakes

Yes, Peanut Butter Cookies in the form of cupcakes. Sweet, peanut-buttery tasting with a lovely creamy frosting.

The white marks are from icing sugar left over from the fork used to make the cross-hatch design (intended to make them look for cookie-ish).

The basic recipe is from Martha Stewart's Cupcake book but I recommend a couple of slight changes.

Banana Ice Cream

When I started making ice cream a couple of years ago, it never occurred to me that one of the most intense flavours would be one of the easiest to make. Not only that, there are always at least three very freckly bananas sitting in the fruit bowl crying out for attention.

I love banana stuff.....way more than actual plain bananas. Something about touching the peel bugs me. Anyway, artificial banana flavour is absolutely horrible and I tend to avoid most banana flavoured stuff unless i know it's pure banana.

Slow-Carb Southwestern Chicken Soup

Not everything is about cake, and sadly while 'slow-carb'ing it, there is very little cake!

I came up with this soup recipe in an attempt to put together several ingredients that are relatively 'slow-carb' okay.  The only thing in this soup that is not okay are the corn niblets, but they are such a key ingredient (in my opinion) I chose to put them in. It's a very small amount so I decided to just let it go.

I usually always have fresh cilantro in the fridge, you may not. I do suggest that you grab a bunch and use it in this recipe. Cilantro is generally one of those things that you either love or hate.