Vegan chocolate cups with coconut cream and berries

I’ve been doing some test runs of different recipes that I’m considering making for our family Christmas this year. Me being vegetarian has caused stress over the years for other people when it comes to family meals and as this will be my first holiday season as a vegan, I’m going to make a few different dishes that everyone including myself will be able to eat.

I sort of just made this recipe up by joining things I’d seen from different places – I saw the idea for chocolate cups somewhere on the internet and I thought it looked like fun. I then found a way to make coconut cream and voila. That was it. I only made small ones for this trial run – its super super easy, somewhat messy if you’re not careful as you’ll see below. These would also work exceptionally well with soy ice cream or cream.

What you need:

Vegan chocolate of your choosing
Tin of coconut milk (more than one if you’re making larger or many cups)
Berries (I used frozen because I couldn’t get fresh ones)
Balloons (I used water balloons but normal sized ones would work for bigger chocolate bowls)
Canola spray
Baking paper
Icing sugar (optional)

First things first, put the tin of coconut cream in the fridge, standing upright. It’s best if you do this overnight or otherwise make sure that it is chilled for around 10 hours before using. Blow up your balloons first too – and do extras! As you’re likely to have a few casualties.

Melt your chocolate.

Transfer your chocolate to a deep bowl, one that will easily fit your balloon. In hindsight I would have used a different bowl as it was a bit hard to manoeuvre the balloons around the one that I used. In my non-test-run I would also use more chocolate to get a better coating on my balloons but for this purpose, the amount I used was fine.

LET YOUR CHOCOLATE COOL! I was too enthusiastic and didn’t wait long enough and I had a few balloons burst loudly mid-coating which was a) terrifying and b) messy, as photographic evidence suggests. Spray the bottom of your balloons with canola spray – it’ll help getting them out later. Holding your balloon by the tie at the end, dip it on all sides into the chocolate and then use a swirling motion to coat all sides evenly as possible. Let excess chocolate drip off into the bowl before transferring to a cutting board (one that you can transfer directly to the fridge) lined with baking paper.

Transfer your balloons to the fridge. I let mine set overnight but a couple of hours should do.

I love that the excess chocolate at the bottom sets while in the fridge so creates a cute little stand for your bowls for much easier presentation :)

I forgot to take photos of the last part of the process but you don’t really need them anyway. Pop your balloons with a needle and carefully pull the skins away from the chocolate. Put you cups back in the fridge while preparing the cream. Take the coconut milk out of the fridge. When you remove the lid you should find that the thick, creamy part of the milk has stayed at the top of the tin and the oily liquidy stuff has sunk to the bottom. Scrape off the cream from the tin and transfer to a bowl, and whip just as you would any normal cream. I added icing sugar to mine to make the cream a little sweeter. Spoon cream into cups, top with berries and voila!

I don’t think I’ll actually make these at Christmas. While they were easy to make they aren’t really that “portable” and plus I don’t know if my Nanna would appreciate me making a mess of her kitchen. Still, a fun, light and not too unhealthy dessert that I will definitely make again :)