Develop desktop applications view with HTML, as a web application

If you have used the JavaScript library - ExtJs - then you can use it with Adobe AIR to build good looking desktop based web app.

Building app's in Adobe AIR is also simple and elegant with the flex builder ide.

If your option goes to embed a light server, check winstone is not fully J2EE compliant but should be enough for what you need. About the browser, I am not a big fan of swt myself, it complicates a lot cross-platform deployment, so probably worth to keep an eye on jwebpane, not quite ready yet, but probably the solution you'll need.