February Daring Bakers!

This month's daring bakers challenge was to make a chocolate Valentino cake and Ice cream. What a perfect month for a sweet and simple chocolate dessert.


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 beyond delicious, and even more simple. I served it with chocolate covered strawberries and whipped cream.

So here's the recipe!

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.

Have your cake...

After caking the cake decorating classes earlier this year, I have become the official cake maker for all family functions. I love this job, I love trying to think of what everyone will like and seeing their faces after they see my creations, that are hopefully everything they hoped for.
September and October are insanely busy with birthdays and anniversaries in my family, so not everyone got cakes, which made me a little sad, but I wouldn't have left my kitchen between 9/20 and 10/29! There are 20 birthdays/anniversaries in that time!
What I was able to do is make cakes for all my cousins who fall in there, and then a separate one for our September/October birthday celebration that we have.
This was my Grandfather's cake, he turned 76 this year. He is a huge country music fan, and a good old southern boy. He adored the simplicity of it, and also the cowboy hat theme. His cake was one layer of vanilla and one of chocolate, filled with buttercream frosting.

This cake was for my cousin Danielle. I'm really close with both her and her twin sister, Devan. Since I started with the decorating, she had been telling me precisely what she wanted, the doll cake that they make. She wanted it to look like Belle from Beauty and the Beast. I didn't have much creative license on this one, as she was very specific, but she was superbly happy with the results. Danielle is a chocolate freak! Her cake was chocolate chocolate chocolate. Topped with a thin layer of vanilla (yellow) buttercream.

Then there is Devan's cake. She had no idea what she wanted. I looked back through my cake pictures then the idea hit me. She loved these two cakes I made way back when I started. Her favorite cake that I've made is actually my first cake. It had star tipped circles on it. Then she liked the cake I made for my own graduation party cake. It was insanely bright colors. Her favorite color is yellow and she is the most energetic 15 year old you'll ever meet. I love that about her, so I tried to make the cake feel like her. I think I was pretty successful, and she really loved it. Her cake was vanilla with vanilla frosting, and covered in mmf.

Tonight is Kristyn's birthday celebration and I'm making homemade gnocchi. I'm a bit excited about trying it.

But before I get to that, I have to comment on the Lemon and Herb Chicken with Roasted Potatoes and easy Caesar Salad. The chicken was amazing. I really liked it, it was super tender and flavorful. Very healthy because I didn't use any fat in it at all. However, the Caesar Salad was nearly inedible. It was far too lemony and garlicky. I am pretty sure it made my tongue tingle, and not in a good way.

Yesterday was my first cake decorating class. So far we haven't done anything for real, but we talked about our upcoming weeks. The teacher is very go with the flow, and she is into giving us the knowledge to do what we want to do with it. Most classes require that you make a rainbow cake your first week, a clown cake the second week, and a rose cake the third week. So it is kind of exciting to be able to learn what we want to learn and do something more our "style."

Kristyn and I have been discussing what kinds of cakes we're interested in making. I have been doing a ton of research on what I want my cakes to look like. As of right now I am planning on making a white square cake with teal circles. I'm looking for other ideas.

I have to go research some tips in making gnocchi!