Saturday, February 28, 2009

Daring Bakers: Flourless Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Valentino


Keeping with my spirit of procrastination, I finished this Valentine's Day special this morning. Hold your applause.

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 cakes are a bit challenging at altitude. They aren't difficult to make, but they can easily turn dry if you're not ultra attentive. I was not. The only technique that I'd like to share on this dessert is that I bake it on the bottom of my silicon pan. What you're actually seeing in the picture is a cake baked on the bottom of my heart pan using pastry rings to form the outside of the cake. Once baked, I had an indented cupcake that I was able to fill. In this case I filled it with cinnamon ice cream.

Nice, but nothing earth shattering even though I used some great chocolate. Still, I overbeat slightly and tried to rescue the dryness by freezing the cake, which only made a subtle impact.

Alright, a few more procrastinated posts will come later this weekend. I hope some of you are still reading :)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very very clever I really think the way you made a heart-shaped 'hole' is super. A perfect place for the cinnamon ice cream. Yes high altitude cooking can be a challenge at that height you have to underbeat the egg white so they will not collaspe when cooked. The cookbook "pie in the sky" has special recipes for baking at heights. Your last line in the blog is a little concerning maybe a little lonely?

Leslie said...

Love that you put the ice cream in the middle!!

Gfron1 said...

Not lonely, just fatigued beyond belief right now. I long for the days when I could post almost daily and keep up with the blogs of friends and mentors, but those days seem behind me for now.

Bumblebutton said...

Hey, that WAS clever. What a neat outcome. Bet that as the ice cream softened it helped with the texture. True grace under pressure!

Amy said...

I'm still reading! I think your cake looks beautiful.

Y said...

What an interesting way to bake the cake! Love that filling of ice cream.