Presenting February’s Daring Bakers’ Challenge:
A Flourless Chocolate Cake — a Chocolate Valentino
The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blogand 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 idea was to make the cake AND icecream. I made the cake, but did skip the ice cream due to the fact that ice cream doesn’t always agree with me. Instead, I served it with whipped cream (very little for me) and fresh blackberries. Despite the warning in the recipe not to overbeat the eggwhites, I did, and therefore dried out the cake. That’s what you get for not paying close enough attention to what you are doing.
Be sure to check out all the other Daring Bakers and their fabulous creations.
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.
Filed under: Daring Bakers, baking, cake, dessert, gluten free, recipe
oh gosh, I’ve been working on not overbeating egg whites, too.
Too bad about the egg whites… but I’m sure the chocolate tasted good! Mine is starting to dry out too. Turns out there is a limit to how much chocolate you can consume in a day. heheh. Maybe I’ll pop the leftovers in the freezer along with my badam milk cardamom ice cream. I did want to do a dairy free version too, but no time.
-Sea
Overbeaten eggs or not, your cake looks amazing, and the whipped cream looks perfect =D!!
Bummer you overbeat the egg whites, I’m really surprised at myself that I actually read the ENTIRE recipe (I usually read the ingredients and stop there) and noticed that part. I bet it’s good with whipped cream!