Well, after getting the basics to work I decided to clean up the mess that was quickly becoming of the HTML and found the wonderful HandlebarsAssets gem that promises to compile Handlebars down to JavaScript and serve it through the Rails 3.1+ asset pipeline. After doing so I can say with confidence I managed to hit every single stumbling block along the way so I decided to write down where I went wrong. Hopefully this helps some other poor soul before he has to dive deep into the bowels of Ember like I had to :).