Friday, February 27, 2009

February Daring Bakers... Chocolate Valentino!

Back for another Daring Bakers Challenge! This month we are doing a flourless chocolate cake aka 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.
What is in a flourless chocolate cake you ask? Well, there is chocolate... butter... and eggs. The end. That's it?! Yes, that's it. Really. Now I am not going to lie... I was totally prepared to HATE this cake. I really don't like chocolate and this is just too much. Buuut upon making the cake I decided it didn't totally suck. I decided I would make a caramel sauce because chocolate and caramel is a nice pairing, no? Then I got a little nuts. I made roasted banana ice cream, thinking caramel and banana= bananas foster= yum. So that's cool. Chocolate cake, roasted banana ice cream and caramel sauce. Simple and tasty. Then I decided I wanted in on this bacon-in-sweet-things action. I made bacon ice cream too. So chocolate cake, bacon ice cream and caramel sauce. well it sound like it should work right? Oh and did I mention I cant eat egg yolks? Read on...

Chocolate Valentino from DB
454 g (1lb) chocolate, roughly chopped
146 g of unsalted butter
5 large eggs, separated
1. Put chocolate and butter in a bowl. Nuke in microwave for 1 minute bursts until smooth and melty.
2. While your chocolate and butter mixture is cooling, butter you baking pan (I used 4 oz Apilco ramekins).
3. Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put the whites into a large bowl and the yolks into a small bowl.
4. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks are formed (do not over-whip or the cake will be dry).
5. Stir the yolks with a fork until runny and lighter.
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 (some white really is okay).
8. Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F for 12 minutes (for the ramekins).
9. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes, then carve around edges with a SHARP knife and unmold.

Roasted Banana Ice Cream
3 bananas, cut into 1 in pieces
1/3 c brown sugar
2 c half and half
1/2 vanilla pod, scraped
2 t lemon juice
1. Heat oven to 400F.
2. Toss bananas and brown sugar together, then spread in a baking dish.
3. Roast for about 25 min, stirring halfway trough.
4. Scrape bananas and all the sugary, sticky goodness into blender. Blend.
5. Add half and half, vanilla seeds and lemon juice and blend until smooth.
6. Freeze according to your ice cream maker.
*If you don't have an ice cream maker you could add some brandy (2-4 Tablespoons-ish) to this and put in a shallow dish. Place the dish in your freezer and pull out every 30 min and beat with a handheld mixer. Tedious, but it works. The -OH keeps huge ice crystals from forming.
7. Put in freezer!

Bacon Brittle Ice cream
1/2 lb bacon (preferably thick cut), diced
2 T brown sugar
1 T butter
1/4 c maple syrup
2 c half and half
1/2 vanilla pod, scraped
2 T brandy
1. Prepare bacon for its ice cream adventure. Fry up the diced bacon until crispy. Drain well. Set aside.
2. Heat brown sugar and butter in microwave (1 min bursts) until it makes a caramely like sauce. 3. Stir in about 2/3 of the bacon and pour mixture into a greased plate or cookie sheet. Let cool.
4. While bacon brittle is cooling, make your ice cream. Mix half and half, maple syrup, vanilla seeds and brandy in a bowl.
5. Freeze according to your ice cream maker.
6. While ice cream is freezing, chop up the cooled bacon brittle.
7. When Ice cream is nearly done freezing add bacon brittle and the 1/3 you saved before (that wasn't added to the brittle).
8. Chuck in freezer in a well-sealed container.

Caramel Sauce
1.5 c sugar
2 T H2O
2 T butter
3/4 c heavy cream
1 t vanilla
1/2 t salt
1. Heat sugar and water in a pan over medium heat, swirling occasionally. DO NOT STIR (will cause your sugar to eff up... just don't do it).

2. When the sugar melts and turns brown (happens really fast) add the butter and stir a little (okay, NOW you can stir). Remove from heat.
3. Add the heavy cream and stir. It will bubble a lot, so be careful.
4. Add vanilla and salt.
4. Done. Store in fridge and just microwave when youe ready for it to be warm and gooey. Its pretty simple but for a more detailed description go here.


Banana ice cream in foreground, bacon in background.
Mmmmm caramel sauce...
I wanted to represent the ingredients. You all are lucky I didn't throw
a strip of bacon in the background for good measure!
Bacon Brittle Ice Cream
Roasted Banana Ice Cream
Inside of de cake.
CAKE- Now I would like to say that I did have a bite of the cake. I used dark chocolate (not super dark) and did not add any sugar, and surprisingly, I liked it! I still don't think I could eat even one whole little cake, its still A LOT of chocolate. More and more though, I think its the ridiculous amount if sugar in chocolate things that I don't like. I don't have big sweet tooth (salt tooth anyone?) so maybe that's it? Maybe my tastes are changing and I am just beginning to dig the stuff. Who knows? I would much prefer a fruity dessert to a chocolaty one still. Oh and did I mention that I will be making myself a yolk-free one soon? We'll have to see how that affects it. My body refuses to digest yolks, so I cant eat the cake. One little bite is okay though... ;) As far as chocolate desserts go, molten chocolate cakes win, but this wasnt bad... just too much for me.
ICE CREAM- The roasted banana was awesome!!! If you like bananas foster it tastes like that... but ice cream! Seriously Im going to spoon some out of the freezer right now... lol. The bacon ice cream was good too, but it had that hint of salty/sweet and maple flavor as well. More complex than the banana for sure. I would maybe serve it with something less in-your-face like this cake is. Maybe with a simple apple pie it would work? The choc just competes too much with it, flavor wise. But still... its bacon. Bacon ice cream. Insta-love.
My cheap set up...

20 comments:

  1. I went all out? Let's see, banana ice cream, bacon ice cream, caramel sauce etc.. You trumped me..lol! Everything looks decadent and beeyootiful! Fantastic job!

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  2. Wow Bacon ice cream - hmm, don't know if I can give that one a whirl, but it all looks fabulous. I too would prefer a fruit desert - mmm lemon curd tart

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  3. Wow, these ice creams look fatastic! I particularly love the bacon brittle one... great job!

    Cheers,

    Rosa

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  4. Bacon Brittle Ice Cream? Awesome! I'd really love to give it a try!

    Great job on the challenge!

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  5. I think you just won the 'Most Creative Ice Cream' Award for bacon brittle.

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  6. Two ice creams? I am impressed! And such interesting flavors to boot. Nice job!!

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  7. Mmmmm... bacon ice cream. One of my favourite things in the world! You did a great job on this challenge!

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  8. I'm impressed! You can't even eat the recipe and still you made it. I look forward to seeing the yolk-free version.

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  9. Oooh bacon ice cream, I'd love to try that

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  10. I love the idea of roasted bananas! I made hazelnut praline, but bacon brittle just never crossed my mind!

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  11. My grandfather used to make banana ice cream but roasted bananas sounds amazing! Fabulous job.

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  12. Lisa Michelle: Thanks so much! But you still went over the top too... ;)

    TCCB: Lemon curd tart indeed... well, without yolks. Yum!

    Rosa: Thanks!

    Marija + Anzj: Thank you! I like to get... "creative" sometimes.

    Kat: Ice creams are easy! Especially when you have a bday to make them for... ;)

    Angela: Yes, bacon IS one of my fave things too. And crab. But I dont think Ill be trying crab ice ceam anytime soon...

    Linsey: Yes, Im a trooper! I am making one little one w/o yolks so we'll see...

    Jill: Do! Its awesome. My ice creams are all super easy b/c there are no eggs in them. EASY!

    Shirley: Im not gonna lie, I ate a couple pieces of roasted banana. I had to quality test, right?

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  13. You know I came over here to see the bacon brittle ice cream. It looks great, but I need to have a scoop of that banana foster ice cream!

    Great job!

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  14. bacon ice cream sounds interesting. love ur setup

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  15. Great Job - I am so glad someone made bacon ice cream!

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  16. Haaaa bacon. Well, the banana part sounds good. :)

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  17. Chickiedoodle: Thanks, you should try it sometime!

    Rebecca: Heck yeah bacon voyeur! Thank you!

    Medhaa: Thanks, I try to make it look halfway decent.

    Amy: LOL Im just waiting for some linkage!

    Jenny: As long as you like at least one ice cream, Im cool!

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  18. Your cake looks lovely and I liked the second picture with the caramel drizzle.

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  19. Absolutely fantastic job & great presentation too :)

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  20. Aparna: Thank you! Photoraphing the drizzle was... fun? No tripod so I drizzled with one hand and took the pic with the other.

    CToaKG: Thanks for stopping by!!! Yeah, the "presentation" is lucky there was no bacon in it, eh?

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