Welcome to How To Cook That, I’m Ann Reardon and today we are making some amazing chocolate balloon bowls! I first made a video showing how to make chocolate bowls using balloons 5 years ago. My filming quality was pretty bad back then but you get the idea ? I did basic ones, drip ones, multicolored ones and since that time there has now been over 200,000 different videos about balloon bowls uploaded to YouTube! Now you’d think in five years and 200,000 videos there would have been heaps of creativity and new ideas and things you could do but no …
For the most part they’re all just more and more and more videos of the exact same thing … the basic chocolate balloon bowl with the exception of a few people who were adventurous enough to dip it into sprinkles. Well I think it’s time that we’ll get a whole heap more creative so today we are going to make some much more adventurous chocolate balloon bowls. Step one if you haven’t seen one of the two hundred thousand videos is to dip a balloon into some melted chocolate … you can use normal balloons or water balloons depending on what size you want your bowl to be. It does help to rub a little bit of cooking oil on your balloon first before you dip it so it’s easier to get the balloon off the chocolate. Then place the balloon onto some baking paper or foil to set. Now for the fun part stretch up the neck of the balloon and make a little cut and let the balloon start to deflate, then for the larger bowls press on the edge on each side just to release the balloon from the chocolate.
Once it’s loose the whole way around let it deflate some more and then squeeze the balloon as it deflates to make sure it’s loosened from the chocolate so the bowl doesn’t break. Then let it deflate the rest of the way and there you have a basic chocolate bowl. One word of caution if your chocolate is too hot when you’re dipping the balloon this will happen so let it cool a bit before you dip it. Firstly we’re gonna make a chocolate dipping bowl. To make this make the normal chocolate bowl like I just showed you and then dip a water balloon into chocolate and instead of putting it flat turn it upside down and place it on a bowl. Putting it upside down like this just means it stays rounded and it doesn’t get a flat bit on the bottom like this one has.
Once they’re set you can deflate the balloon and then add some chocolate to the outside of the little bowl and attach it to the big one. While that’s setting you’ll need something to support it with so I’m just going to use some scrunched up paper towel and then once that is set you can just remove the paper towel and add some strawberries or anything that would be yummy dipped into sauce. I’m using chocolate ganache in my bowl but salted caramel would be yummy too … you could even have two bowls one with the caramel one with the salt so you could have just the amount that you like. Now this bowl is big enough to share but you can of course make individual ones too … just use a water balloon for the outside bowl and a partially inflated water balloon for their little dipping bowl. Next we have bowls with a custom top. These are really easy just make your basic bowl then flip it upside down and put it onto a plate of melted chocolate.
Then gently roll it in the topping and sprinkle some anywhere that it has gaps. I really like how these next ones turned out chocolate bark bowls. Dip your balloon into the melted chocolate then give it a little shake to get off any excess and then before it sets add to it things like freeze-dried strawberries and then some pistachios … these ones would make pretty Christmas gifts if you had some little Christmas cookies inside them and wrapped it in some cellophane or something like that.
You can sprinkle them with nuts or I’m using cookie crumbs here just use your imagination and add whatever flavors you’d like to eat with your chocolate. Candy is always a popular one with the younger kids you can pop those little Smarties or little M&Ms all over the outside if you’re having a party this makes a great dessert and once they’re set you can of course just deflate all of the balloons and then fill it up with mousse or candy or ice cream works really well too.
If you want to add something heavier like Maltesers to your bowl … if you try and add them like we did for the chocolate bark bowls they’re just going to fall off. So what you need to do is make a basic chocolate balloon bowl then turn that upside down and use some melted chocolate to add them to the side of the bowl until the whole thing is covered yum! I always like to loosen the edges as it’s deflating especially with the larger bowls because the chocolate is quite thin and it can break if you just let it deflate all at once.
Look at that 🙂 I like the way the light shines through these next ones. To make them you just dip your balloon in white chocolate then place that upside down on a bowl to set. Once that’s ready dip it into milk chocolate or dark chocolate and place it onto baking paper. Once it’s setting but it’s still slightly soft use a teaspoon to scrape off some of that chocolate and just keep scraping it until you’re happy with the amount of white chocolate that you can see showing through there. Keeping the balloon inflated while you do this supports the chocolate but it also gives you something to hang on to while you’re doing it so that you don’t end up with your fingerprints all over the balloon bowl. Once they’re set firmly you can then just deflate those balloons. If you want to take that one step further then dip the balloon into white chocolate then milk then white again and then finally into some blue chocolate and you can color chocolate using oil based food coloring just mix it into a small amount first and then mix it into the rest of the white chocolate.
Once it’s set take a razor blade and gently scrape off layers of chocolate to reveal the colours underneath. The exact look of your circles and how thick they are will depend on the thickness of the layers of your chocolate that you put on there. Now for a crazy bowl that looks like it’s made out of elastic bands! For this you’ll need a piece of marble or Corian bench top that’s been in the freezer overnight. Spread out some melted chocolate over the top and then quickly cut strips using a pizza cutter. Now because the surface is so cold it will shock set the chocolate but if you lift it off then it will become bendable and soft again. If you’re in a warm room like me it will become almost melted again so the balloon is what we need to support it into the shape we want. Add several strips over the balloon and then repeat that using other colours of chocolate.
You can trim the top or leave it uneven depending on the look you’re going for and then let that set and then once it is set you of course just deflate your balloon letting it deflate slowly and squeezing it to loosen it from the chocolate and then you can just let it deflate the rest of the way. Look at that isn’t that a cool bowl! Subscribe to How To Cook That for more crazy sweet creations, click here for the latest video, here for my really old chocolate balloon bowl video and here for my chocolate playlist. Make it a great week and I’ll see you on Friday. .
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