Caramel-Dipped Popovers with Chocolate Mousse

I broke out this recipe (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Caramel-Dipped-Popovers-with-Chocolate-Mousse-51214730) from the February Bon Appetit issue, and I am sad to say it was a total disaster.

Of course I am probably being dramatic, one of my key skills.

Shamefully, I do not own a popover pan. This recipe accounts for that, however, explaining that you can split the batter into 10 of the cups of a standard muffin pan, filling the last two halfway with water. So I did that. In hindsigh though, part of the problem must have been that by using a muffin pan, you are only using 3 TBS of batter per popover, as opposed to 5 if you use a standard popover pan. Should have thought that through. Unfortunately, the popovers turned out beautifully on the top, but completely concave on the bottom. Since you need to inject the mousse into the popovers, that’s  a bit of a problem, since there is nowhere to inject the mousse now. Needless to say, I recommend scrapping the muffin tin situation, making this only if you have a popover pan.

So that was problem 1.

Problem 2 was the mousse. It was beautiful when I was done with it. Until the recipe said to hold it over in the fridge for at least two hours. Done. Well, I pulled it out only to find it had turned into a briquette. I let it stand, figuring that it just had gotten into a cold spot in my fridge (though I know that is not the truth). Still no luck.

Then there was the caramel. That was my fault for over stirring it, causing it to crystalize.

Lessons learned: don’t use a muffin pan in lieu of a popover pan unless you use the right ratio, but even then will it still turn out concave? Also, don’t over stir your caramel. Lastly, well, I don’t know what happened to the mousse. We wound up just scooping the mousse with a cookie scoop into the concave part of the popovers and eating it as such.

Well. Off to try something else!