Tuesday, March 3, 2009

Flourless in NJ

When I first saw a flourless chocolate cake I was watching the beautiful Curtis Stone on Take Home Chef. It looked delicious but I doubted that I could make it as well as he did. Well, I can! And I can't...I'll explain.
I had no problems with the recipe. Everything came together seamlessly (someone told me never to say that. Carol, are you reading this?). O.K. I take the cake out of the oven. No jigglyness in the middle, it's not burnt, it looks great. So I set it on the rack to cool. But did I wait long enough before I removed it from the pan? I'm ashamed to say "no".

I knew better. I was treating it like a normal cake and it was fine until I flipped it over and then it fell to pieces. I should be grateful that it happened on the counter and mostly on a plate instead of on the floor.

So what do I do with these pieces? I thought and thought and thought and then it hit me - Ice Cream Cake! I ran the idea by my *genius* cooking buddy, Jessie, and she loved it too. She even suggested that I get the little crunchies to go with it (it's on my shopping list). So I broke out the largest heart-shaped cookie cutter I own and this is what I got:












Then another idea: why not fill some heart ramekins with the same cake/ice cream formula and make single servings of ice cream cake? Done! The ice cream was a big hit (I used the second recipe) but I got mixed reactions from the cake. I think the chocolate may have been a little too intense - it was a little bitter, but I think the ice cream takes a away most of the bitterness and leaves you with a delicious dessert that looks special. The ice cream was so simple to make. I didn't use an ice cream machine, just a hand-held mixer. I whipped the ice cream every 20-30 minutes for about 3 hours and left it overnight.



This has been a great challenge. Thanks, Daring Bakers!

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.

No comments: