Weekend Project: sweets from the archives

I hate to do this just after starting it, but I won't be able to post new Weekend Projects (where I suggest a food project that takes a bit of time to accomplish) for a couple of weeks, since I'm on the road. (I have a kitchen to use...but I can only find a couple of battered pots here.) There are several Just Hungry articles from the past that are great for trying out over a weekend though. Since the weekend always seems like a great time to have something sweet, here are just a few suggestions.

• This mousse au chocolat recipe is still the best I've tried, provided fresh, organic eggs are available. We tried it a couple of weeks ago in a two-color version. Just use white chocolate instead of dark in the same recipe. This is really not hard to make at all...but we can't afford, calorie-wise, to have it all the time. So it's reserved for special occasions, like, um, Sunday afternoons.
• Cream puffs, filled with custard cream are cool, smooth and delicious. If you don't want to bother with the custard though, ice cream is a wonderful filler. Make your puffs on the small side, using this very hard to screw up choux pastry recipe, and fill each with a small scoop of vanilla or flavor of your choice. Optionally drizzle some store-bought chocolate syrup over it.
• If you want smooth, creamy and sophisticated for the perfect end to an adult dinner, try this Vin Santo syllabub with almond tuilles. Vin santo is a sweet Italian dessert wine; you can substitute any white dessert wine for it if you can't find it. You can use thin store-bought cookies instead of the tuilles if you can't stand the thought of baking right now.
• If nothing but chocolate will do, how about home made dark chocolate peanut butter cups? This is a really fun project to do with kids. And you barely need to heat up anything at all - all you need to do is melt the chocolate, which can be done in the microwave.

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