Edible chocolate cups, mini-disasters and hot chocolate from Gü

"Anything is good if it's made of chocolate" (Jo Brand, British comedian)

I am one of those enthusiastic foodie bloggers who cannot resist a cooking challenge. When Gü Puds asked me if I'd like to create an edible cup for their new hot chocolate, of course, I jumped at the opportunity. What's not to like? A cooking challenge - Yes! Chocolate - a double Yes!
First I watched a few tutorials online on how to make edible chocolate cups. I did have a suspicion that what looked effortless, might be less easy in real life.
I melted a bar of dark cooking chocolate. Dipped the Askeys cup cones (those short ones that you buy for serving ice cream), sprinkled with Bronze Crunch (found in Waitrose Cooks' Homebaking range), left the cups to set on a piece of foil. That was the easy part.
Now let's make the saucers. As suggested in one of the video tutorials, I have wrapped a piece of cling film around the saucer, smoothed the edges, poured the melted dark chocolate over the film, cleaned the edges so that the end result will be perfectly shaped, sprinkled with more Bronze Crunch and place the saucer in the fridge to set. It set all right. Removing it from the saucer was a completely different matter. The crisp edges started to crumble, as they were too thin. Well, the tutorial said, they should be thin. I managed to peel off the cling film, but my chocolate saucer looked quite lop-sided now.
Will I be able to fix it? I took the saucer carefully in my hand, and tried to "glue" the bits that have fallen off with melted chocolate. The end result was even worse. It looked like made by someone who has imbibed a good amount of sherry shots at a Christmas party, i.e. a complete disaster.
Frustrated at my inability to make a decent chocolate saucer, I decided to cheat.
Out came the pack of Digestives, the wobbly saucer was remelted and poured over the biscuits. Yes, that looks better. And sturdier. I have added a few soft silver pearls from Dr Oetker around the edge.
While the mini-saucer hasn't set yet, I placed a cup on top of the saucer.
Once set, the edible cup was filled with a hot chocolate from Gu. And a big marshmallow, snipped with scissors at the bottom, was placed over the rim.

You might have seen Gu Hot Chocolate Milk Drink - a new product from Gu in Waitrose, Tesco, Sainsbury's or Booths. When I agreed to take part in the challenge, I started looking for it, but it was as elusive as a famous Scarlet Pimpernel. After visiting half a dozen of supermarkets, I have finally found it in the local Sainsbury's.
Gu Hot Chocolate comes in 3 tempting flavours - Hot Chocolate, Mocha Flavour Hot Chocolate and Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate. The only one I managed to find was a Hot Chocolate.
It comes in a 750ml carton, and you can find it in the milk aisle, next to the flavoured milks and iced coffees.
Drink it cold or hot. Pure bliss! It is thick, velvety smooth and very chocolatey.
Have you tried a new drink? And have you ever made edible cups?

I was waiting with great interest to see what other bloggers would come up with. Alison from Dragons and Fairy Dust has baked delicious gingerbread cups to serve the hot chocolate. I love the sound of that, I bet the combination of gingerbread and hot chocolate was delicious.

Cheryl from Madhouse Family Reviews has created a drinking cup from an apple - see her edible cup challenge. It looks very Gu-d, decorated with icing and flowers.

Disclosure: I received Tesco vouchers for the purposes of testing the product and trying to make an edible cup. All opinions (and disasters) are mine.