The Daring Baker's Challenge: Chocolate Valentino and Ice Cream

On a day when my fellow Louisianans were chasing chickens or chasing beads, I spent my rare day off with my kids in the kitchen making Chocolate Valentino, February's Daring Baker's Challenge.

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.

This challenge was simple and satisfying, with so few ingredients churning out delicious treats.

The Daring Bakers were tasked with making a flourless chocolate cake accompanied with homemade ice cream. I have never made ice cream from scratch before, so this was going to be fun.

I settled on using Dharm's ice cream recipe. Since the ice cream would take the most time to make, we started the custard base early in the morning. I enlisted my eight-year-old to stir the pot until the mixture came to a boil. He's a good helper, but I was afraid him stealing tastes every now and then would leave us with little custard for the ice cream.

I don't know of any local source for the double cream called for in the recipe and am not sure if it is called by any other name here. I went for the trick of increasing the fat in the cream with the extra 3 tablespoons of butter. As I was whipping the cream to achieve a cream-like consistency, I became concerned as the cream remained in a thickened liquid state. I switched between my hand mixer and my standing mixer and achieved the same results. I finally decided to just use it as it was and see how things would turn out.

I had my concerns over the flourless chocolate cake, too. I had attempted one of these about 10 years ago with disastrous results. That try came out like a chocolate brick and was destined for the trash. I am glad to say that this try was a great success!

The recipe reminded me of the chocolate bundt cake in the Baking with Julia recipe Chocolate Bundt Cake with Creme Brulee. Just like Julia's chocolate bundt cake, the chocolate valentino cake calls for separating the yolks and the whites and beating each in its own bowl -- the yolks until combined; the whites until fluffy. It's the fluffy whites that help make the cake extra fluffy.

I used a combination of Ghirardelli 60% cacao chocolate and Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate for the chocolate base.

I decided to cook the cakes in individual ramekins, which made some splendid little cakes.

The whole dish was a success. The cakes came out nice and fluffy and the ice cream was delicious. I completed the look with some strawberry sauce and fresh sliced strawberries.

I love making the ice cream and have plans to make another batch. With the chocolate cakes, I'd make them with some sweeter chocolate and maybe in smaller ramekins.

The recipes for these dishes can be found at the hosts' blogs.