1up Mushrooms (continued)

What You Need

Ingredients
You no longer need…
1. Cocoa Powder (this can be a culinary brand or you can use certain kinds of hot-chocolate mix. I prefer sweeter tasting ones, but it can be bitter if you like. If you use hot-cocoa mix, make sure that it is pretty much just chocolate, not with all the extra weird chemicals like in Swiss Miss allowed!)
2. About ¾ Cup of Chocolate Chips (for melting. You can use chocolate kisses, but I recommend going for something a little more high-quality, like Ghirardelli’s or Guittard’s, as the quality flavor really makes the dish)
But you now need…
1. About 1-2 Cups of White Chocolate Chips (for melting. You can use chocolate kisses, but I recommend going for something a little more high-quality, like Ghirardelli’s or Guittard’s, as the quality flavor really makes the dish)
2. Green Food Coloring (or Red if you intend to make Super Mushrooms instead. Gel or powdered only!)
3. Black Food Coloring (for the eyes; if you don’t want eyes, don’t worry about this then. Gel is preferable, but you could work with other kinds I suppose)

Equipment
You no longer need…
1. Sharp Knife
2. Fine Strainer/Fine Straining Lid for a Shaker (and said Shaker)
But you now need…
1. 2x Cocktail forks or similar sized tools for extracting food coloring form small jar
2. Plate
3. Something to use like a brush for the chocolate (this could even be a brush; I used the back of a small paint dropper)
4. Microbrush (for the eyes; if you don’t want eyes, don’t worry about this then)
5. A helper (this was optional in CCM’s, but is required for this recipe; otherwise your meringue could collapse or you will die of exhaustion while putting on the white spots)
6. A second piping tip and accompanying large zip-loc bag.


A Few Questions Before We Begin…

The same questions from CCM’s apply here (NOTE: less-dense meringue takes on food coloring better and is recommended for this recipe), but also consider…

What do you want your mushrooms to look like? Think about color/dots, overall size/the size ratio between caps and stems, and if you want your mushrooms to have eyes or not. Swap the green food coloring for whatever color you want your caps to be (red Super Mushrooms, purple poisonous ones, or even a made up kind, just have fun), and check the ingredients and equipment lists above depending if you want eyes or not. As far size and ration, naturally if you make smaller mushrooms you can make more of them, but they are extremely difficult to work with, and making stems that small can also be very tricky. My batch is of fairly large mushrooms, some with really large caps, some with fairly large stems. But whatever ratio you decide on, figure it out ahead of time so that when you split your meringue between stems and caps, you’ll know how much you want and don’t end up with too many of one or the other. I personally recommend doing about 2/3 caps and 1/3 stems, because bigger caps just work better all around. For the dots, these are a lot of work, but a really great touch in my opinion. I aim for 5 dots on my mushrooms, but fewer dots = less work. They would still be cool without the dots, just not as cool… Lastly, the eyes are really cute, I highly recommend including them (unless you’ll feel bad eating them because of their cuteness).