Friday, February 27, 2009

Decadent Flourless Chocolate Cake and Earl Grey Ice Cream


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 Daring Bakers celebrate Valentine's Day. This was a great challenge for our household as we are tried and true flourless chocolate cake lovers - not to mention, homemade ice cream lovers as well. Plus, this type of cake is not too difficult, and as things have been fairly busy lately, it was nice to not be blown away by the challenge. That said (and assuming we either fix our broken oven, or get a new one) I am ready to tackle another DB doozy - bring it on.

I could eat chocolate cake all the time. Seriously. Daily. I really like cake. MMMmmmm cake!

This cake definitely sated my yearnings. It's rich, chocolaty, and wonderful. Be sure to use a good chocolate as this cake is really mostly just that. For the ice cream, I found a great recipe for Earl Grey ice cream that I thought would pair wonderfully with the intense chocolate. It worked out well and I will be making other tea infused ice creams in the future - maybe chai ice cream with a cinnamon bread pudding?

We made and served this cake for my mom's birthday. As a fellow chocolate lover she really enjoyed it too. It topped off a great meal of homemade rye bread, and fresh ricotta gnocchi with homemade ricotta - stay tuned, I'll be blogging that meal later in the week.


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.



Earl Grey Tea Ice Cream

from Mac & Cheese
makes about 1 quart


1 cup whole milk

2 cups half and half (can use heavy cream for a richer ice cream)
¾ cup sugar

5-6 Earl Grey tea bags

5 egg yolks


Warm the milk, half and half, and sugar in a saucepan.

Remove from heat, place tea bags in the pan, cover and steep at room temperature for an hour.
Remove tea bags.
Rewarm tea-infused milk.
Whisk egg yolks together in a separate bowl.

Slowly pour the milk mixture into the bowl with egg yolks, whisking constantly.

Return the milk and egg mixture to the saucepan, and cook over medium heat, stirring and scrapping the bottom of the pan constantly until the mixture thickens to a custard and coats the spatula.

Cool the mixture, and freeze in your ice cream maker.



15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looks great and the ice cream sounds yummy! Great job!

Anzj said...

Earl Grey ice cream? Nice!!

Rosa's Yummy Yums said...

great flavor combination! Very well done here!

Cheers,

Rosa

Danielle said...

I seriously need to try that ice cream.

Arlene Delloro said...

Your cake looked perfect. Interesting ice cream flavor.

Rebecca said...

I love the sound of your ice cream, and it looks like it goes great with your cake!

Amy said...

I am loving the tea-infused ice cream. Well done, it looks so good!

fatboybakes said...

EARL GREY ICE CREAM!!!! WOWWWWWW, i am sooo gonna try your ice cream recipe!!!!! thank you for sharing!

Unknown said...

I am all about tea, and can't wait to try this ice cream recipe! What a lovely pairing with chocolate.

Katia said...

You are something else. Can't wait to tackle that ice cream for our next Soup Sunday maybe?

gluten free pammy said...

looks great, I think I will follow along for awhile,pam

Siri said...

Hey! I made a successful batch of early grey ice cream not so long ago too. The best part is that it is a bit like eating a creamy perfume. You early grey icebox cookies looks pretty great too.

Ethan said...

Thanks for the comments.

The Earl Grey ice cream is quite fun. Indeed like eating creamy perfume a bit Siri (that may sound odd, but it's really good). The Earl Grey Tea Cookies you mentioned I think are even better.

Sheree' said...

Nice job! Hmm, your ricotta gnocchi with homemade ricotta sounds like a recipe I want to try and veganize. So glad you stopped by my blog. We only eat homemade bread so it is nice to try some new recipes.

BC said...

My vote is for chai tea!

Looks delicious.