February Daring Bakers: Flourless Chocolate Cake

This month's Daring Baker's Challenge: Flourless Chocolate Cake and Homemade Ice Cream. Perfect for Valentine's Day, except that I didn't plan right and couldn't make it that day. So as usual, it was a last-minute job today.

I had never made flourless cake before, so I was intrigued. I've heard about them before but it's one of those things that's hard to fathom until I see and taste one with my own two eyes.

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.

The cake was a little overbaked, the edges were a little burnt. So the cake was a little on the dry side. I was hoping for something "brownie-ish" but it wasn't. I used bittersweet chocolate, perhaps dark or semi-sweet chocolate would of been better. But it was very simple to make.

I chose Wendy's ice cream recipe, a Philadelphia style vanilla ice cream. Since I've made the cooked, custard-style vanilla ice cream before I went with her recipe to try something different. There were no eggs and not cooked. How simple.

The cake was served with the vanilla ice cream drizzle with caramel sauce and some blueberries on the side.

Here's the recipes:

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.

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.

Wendy's Ice Cream Recipe

Vanilla Philadelphia Style Recipe

Preparation Time: 5 minutes

2 cups (473 ml) of half and half (1 cup of heavy cream and 1 cup of whole, full fat milk)

1 cup (237 ml) heavy cream

2/3 (128 grams) cup sugarDash of salt

1 (12 grams) tablespoon of vanilla

Mix all ingredients together (we do this in a plastic pitcher and mix with an emulsifier hand blender-whisking works too). Refrigerate for 30 minutes or longer. Mix in your ice cream maker as directed.

Check out some more neat creations by the rest of the gang.