Saturday, February 28, 2009

Daring Bakers- Flourless Chocolate Cake

For some reason, when I first heard of flourless chocolate cake, I thought it was healthy. Maybe it was because of the whole low carb thing- I thought, oh no flour? Maybe it's healthy. Well, it is not. But we shouldn't expect such nonsense from something as wonderful as chocolate cake.
This month's Daring Bakers challenge was chosen by Wendy at
wmpesblog (Arizona) and Dharm at Dad - Baker and Chef (Malaysia). They chose 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 really easy and quick, with only 3 ingredients. I made little ones in cupcake tins so we could try them tonight before tomorrow night when we'll have guests. Perhaps I baked mine a little long; I thought the cake was a little dry and definitely needed the ice cream. I didn't have too much time to get fancy; we just got back from being out of town last night. Thanks to Wendy and Dharm for a great pick! Check out their blogs for their ice cream recipes!Chocolate Valentino
Preparation Time: 20 minutes

16 ounces (1 pound) of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
½ cup (1 stick) plus 2 tablespoons 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
9. Bake for 25 minutes until an instant read thermometer reads 140F.
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.

4 comments:

  1. Ha! Flourless does sound like it should be healthy. Your cake and ice cream look wonderful.

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  2. AHH!! You made minis too. Much better that way. Just little bites of sweet. Looks just right.

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  3. Looks great! I thought it was an easy but delicious challenge which was nice, because I didn't have a ton of time to get creative either.

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  4. Healthy = happy so I guess chocolate qualifies!

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