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PHOTO: I made Pinterest's top 10 Halloween recipes of 2019, which included chocolate skulls.
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If you're a perfectionist, this recipe is not for you. Getting these skulls right took a lot of patience, and in the end, I still didn't end up with the beautiful, whole skulls that I had pictured or that are seen on the pin. I bought the same mold from Amazon that pin called for, but dealing with melting chocolate disks can always be fickle if you're trying to mold something perfectly. The chocolate has to be hot enough to melt, but not too hot to overcook and seize. I usually use my croc pot for melting chocolate instead of the microwave, which I find can burn chocolate fast. I put a mason jar with melting disks in a crockpot set to high and waited about 20 minutes for the chocolate to melt.

I did that when prepping this recipe, but for whatever reason, the chocolate wouldn't get thin enough for me to fill the mold easily, so I kept having to squish semi-melted chocolate into the mold with a spoon. Not all melting chocolate is the same. When I put the molds in the freezer and took them out, the back of the skulls were never attached to the front no matter what I did, so I had to try to use more chocolate to fuse them together and refreeze them outside of the mold.

Aside from those issues, I found it hard to 'crack' the chocolate skulls without breaking them and ended up with totally broken heads half the time. I probably made more than two dozen versions of these before getting ones I felt were decent enough to photograph. I will say that the mousse brains were delicious. They were so good in fact that I ate some of it with a spoon instead of eating it in the chocolate skull. That was definitely the best part of the recipe and fairly easy to make.

While I was making this recipe I thought that if I were to make it again what I'd do was double the amount of filling I made, get a nice bowl and pipe the filling into the bowl so it looks like brains, and make about 4 chocolate skulls to stick in the top of the brain-like mousse. It'd save you a lot of time because the skulls wouldn't have to be perfect and you wouldn't have to fuss over cracking the back of the skulls.

All in all, this recipe took a lot longer than I expected because of all of the chocolate issues and because I whipped the cream by hand (silly me). This can be a fun one to make with the whole family since there's zero real cooking required, but be prepared for messy skulls and bits of broken chocolate all over the kitchen.

\"PHOTO:
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PHOTO: The chocolate skulls wouldn't stay together in the mold so I kept having to fuse them together after I froze them with more melted chocolate.
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  • Chocolate Skulls
  • Place half of the melting chocolate in a glass measuring cup and melt on defrost in 20-second intervals until nearly all is melted and stir.
  • Pour into bottle or piping bag and squeeze 1/4 of the chocolate into the molds and rotate the molds to coat the entire inside. Repeat several times to ensure a thick enough coating.
  • Place in freezer for 10 minutes to set. Pop each chocolate skull out of the mold and set aside. Repeat to mold the remaining four skulls.
  • When the hollow chocolate skulls are at room temperature, crack into the back of each. Break off small pieces until you have ample room to fill them.
  • Pink Cheesecake Mousse Brains
  • Beat the whipping cream until thick and makes nice peaks. Don't over beat. Scoop into a bowl and place in refrigerator.
  • Beat together cream cheese, confectionery sugar and vanilla until smooth.
  • Melt the white chocolate chips on defrost level of microwave in 20-second intervals, then stir until melted. Beat into the cream cheese mixture along with 2 - 3 drops of red food coloring.
  • Fold the cream cheese mixture and whipped cream together gently, until it's all pink.
  • Chill the mousse for 30 minutes then pipe into the skull dessert cups. Make the top squiggly to resemble the folds of the human brain. Chill for 2-3 hours before serving.

    • Recipe reprinted courtesy of Mom Foodie.

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    PHOTO: I made chocolate skulls, one of Pinterest's top 10 Halloween recipes.
    >

    via GIPHY

    Bon Appétit!

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