Chocolate Valentino – Daring Bakers Challenge

What better to celebrate the month of Love other than with Chocolate? The Daring Bakers did just that, wooing their loved ones or just their taste buds with the sinful sensation of Chocolate!!

This month’s challenge is the “Chocolate Valentino”, a flourless chocolate cake, every bite is divine. We also had to make our own ice-cream to serve with the Chocolate Valentino.

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. They have chosen a Chocolate Valentino cake by Chef Wan; a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Dharm and a Vanilla Ice Cream recipe from Wendy as the challenge.

We were allowed to use semi-sweet, milk, bitter or white chocolates to make the cake. We were also given the liberty to make ice-cream using a recipe of our choice.

Equipment: It is optional to use a heart shaped pan. For a real Valentino, bake it in a heart shaped pan or cut it out into a heart shape. You may use any shape pan that gives you an area of 50” - 6x8 or 7x7. An 8” spring form pan works with great results as do smaller pans or ramekins.

Chocolate Valentino

Preparation Time: 20 minutes

You will need:

16 ounces (1 pound) (454 grams) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons (146 grams total) of unsalted butter
5 large eggs separated

Put chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl and set over a pan of simmering water (the bottom of the bowl should not touch the water) and melt, stirring often. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls. Whip the egg whites in a medium/large grease free bowl until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry). With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture and follow with remaining 2/3rds. Fold until no white remains without deflating the batter. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C

Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F/60C.
Note – If you do not have an instant read thermometer, the top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

I halved the recipe and used a 6” round pan to bake the cake. I used 4oz Semisweet chocolate and 4oz Milk chocolate. Using a heart shaped cookie cutter, I made the Valentino.

Home-made Vanilla ice-cream

I don’t own an ice-cream maker and hence chose to make mom’s recipe for Vanilla ice-cream. The only special equipment you will need for this recipe is an electric beater.

You will need:

6 tbsp Milk powder

3 ½ cups Milk

¾ cup Sugar

¼ tbsp Ice-cream Stabilizer

1 tbsp Corn syrup

4 tbsp Powdered sugar

1 ¼ cups Heavy cream

¼ tsp Vanilla extract

Combine the stabilizer with 2tbsp of Sugar and 3 tbsp of Milk, to form a paste, set aside. Mix the milk powder with ½ cup of warm milk. Combine the rest of the milk, stabilizer-milk powder paste and sugar in a medium saucepan. Add the corn syrup. Bring to a boil on medium heat while stirring. Allow to boil for 3-5 minutes. Remove from heat, let cool and then stir in the vanilla extract. Pour into a deep wide container and let freeze overnight.

The next day, ‘churn’ the mixture using an electric beater, till smooth. In another bowl, whip the cream with the powdered sugar until thick and forms stiff peaks. Fold this into the ice-cream mixture, till combined. Pour into a container and freeze for 6 hours or overnight.

The ice-cream is ready to serve the next day.

The intense chocolateyness of the cake made a great pair with the smooth creaminess of the ice-cream.

It was exactly a year ago this month that I joined the Daring Bakers. I missed a few challenges last year, and hope not to this year! :)

Another tasty challenge completed.