Saturday, February 28, 2009

February Daring Bakers Challenge- Chocolate Valentino

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef.
We 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.

Flourless chocolate cake. What more can I say? This was a fun experience. Since the recipe calls for semisweet chocolate, and my real life "Valentino" won't touch it (sigh), I made it instead with a nice milk chocolate called Galaxy in the UK, or Dove in the States.
The result was a soft, decadent, cake-version of a chocolate bar. I baked mine in two shallow 8 inch round pans, resulting in cakes the thickness of brownies, rather than a cake, since I spread the batter thinner than if I had used one deep pan, which I don't have at the moment.



I cut the cakes into hearts, and plated them with Amaretto Frozen Custard... sounds good, right? Well, I would post that recipe, but the technique I used resulted in something that did taste nice, but the texture was an icy, yet fattening, slop. So I can't bring myself to recommend it, as I threw it out.

The Valentino, however, is good-- no, it's great-- taste and texture. Below are my notes on the recipe, followed by the recipe itself. Thank you for hosting, Wendy and Dharm!!

Notes:
-- Many DB'ers found using full-on semi-sweet resulted in a bitter cake, even to those die-hard chocolate fans. I would probably say half-milk, half-semi would be good.
--I used 454 grams of milk chocolate, and reduced the butter by 2 tablespoons.
--I reduced the baking time by almost half, as I had two pans and a fan-assisted oven.

Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes

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

1. 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.
2. While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.
4. 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).
5. With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.
6. Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.
7. 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. {link of folding demonstration}
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C
9. 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.
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

10 comments:

  1. I love how you cut these hearts. The cake was so good and I bet this simple combination was VERY tasty!!!!

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  2. Wonderful...hearty shape, love it :)

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  3. eat, too bad it didn't turn out. Love your hearts!

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  4. Love the shape of your cakes!
    So cute...

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  5. Mmm, your cake looks wonderful, I love the heart shapes =D!!

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  6. Love the heart shapes... The amaretto custard sounds like the perfect accompaniment!

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  7. Amaretto parfait...now I have a new version to try! Great job.

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  8. Those hearts are beautiful! I don't generally consider myself a big "heart" girl, but I love those. Great job! I wish I had had better luck with mine.

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  9. That's such a bummer about the custard, but I think your plate looks great. Nice job cutting out the hearts!

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