Daring Flourless Chocolate Cake

Do you know what time it is?

I think so, but how are we going to make pencils that taste like bacon? Or maybe we should make bacon that tastes like pencils? (Narf.)

(Ten points to anyone who understands that.)

It's Daring Bakers time!

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 flourless chocolate Valentino was mandatory, the ice cream encouraged but not required. Thank goodness, because I just did not have enough time this month to make ice cream. I don't have an ice cream machine and between spending nearly the first half of the month in Florida and the last half of the month with my nose buried in text books, I just didn't have the time.

Which is unfortunate, because I really wanted to try it out.

I'm sure I'll get there eventually.



I've always been intrigued by the mechanics of flourless cakes - it just doesn't seem right that delicate, wispy egg whites should be able to support such a heavy ingredient like chocolate. But they do, and they do so quite nicely. It creates a cake that veritably melts on the tongue. One of the best aspects of making a cake like this is the amount to which the chocolate is showcased. It's not masked or disguised with other flavors - the cake will taste exactly like the chocolate used.

This is all great and lovely if you are a huge dark chocolate fan, but I'm not. I was unsure of how to proceed until I had a great epiphany - mint chocolate! I love dark chocolate and mint together. And oh boy was it delicious.



It was like eating a slice of those Andes mints. Pure heaven.

If you've ever entertained the idea of making a flourless chocolate cake but haven't because it sounded too difficult or intimidating - try this recipe. I'm the worst whipped egg white folder in the universe and it worked perfectly for me. It's probably one of the easiest things I've ever made.

A big thanks to Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef for such a fun and novel challenge. Of course a big thanks to our lovely founders, Lis and Ivonne.

Please be sure to check out all the other Daring Bakers to see their amazing creations this month too.



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.
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.

Cowgirl Chocolates

One of the lovely things about being a Foodbuzz Featured Publisher is all the fun perks. When I first signed on to team up with Foodbuzz I thought it would do little more than create a little bit of exposure for my tiny blog. I have been very happily surprised to discover that it is much more than that. Not only is Foodbuzz a really fun and useful way to connect with friends and fellow foodies, but they sent me to an awesome place like Slow Food Nation '08. On top of general bad-assery, and cool little gifts, Foodbuzz also sends out little treats to sample on occasion.

On this occasion it was a very generous selection of chocolate truffles from Cowgirl Chocolates.



First, I would like to point out that those are the coolest stickers ever. Packaging is a really big deal to me. I don't care how magnificent the product is if it has crappy packaging. No gift should require the preface of, "I know it looks really lame, but it's actually really great!" When I receive something I want to look at it and say, "Wow, that looks really cool." If I don't, I probably won't buy it.

So you won't be surprised to learn that I was very pleased upon removing the already super cool tissue paper and stickers to find this little beauty.



I mean, how freakin' adorable is that, right? I am already totally in love with this company.

A little backstory on Cowgirl Chocolates. They are located in Moscow, ID. Founder Marilyn Lysohir branched out from her career of ceramic sculpture into chocolate in 1997. Cowgirl Chocolates features an interesting niche within the confectionery world, spicy chocolates. They have been featured on several Food Network shows, including "Unwrapped" with the ultra-creepy Marc Summers as host.

Now, when I found out that Cowgirl Chocolates specialized in "hot" chocolates I was intrigued. I'm not a huge chocolate fan, but I enjoy new and different things - and these were definitely new and different. I took them with me to the MiL's house in D.C. because she really enjoys chocolate. Unfortunately, with as many photos of the packaging that I have I only ended up with one serviceable picture of the truffles themselves.



We received a lovely collection of both spicy and mild truffles, plus one caramel. As I was removing all of the truffles from the box Mr. TA stole the flavor guide and refused to return it, instead forcing us to try the chocolates and then guess what they were. It was quite fun until we reached some of the spicier guys, but I'll get to that later...

Starting clockwise from the white chocolate truffle:

Ivory Orange: A white chocolate shell with a center of milk chocolate infused with orange. Very creamy, the orange makes a very strong presence.

Milk Chocolate: This one tasted of creamy milk chocolate with hints of caramel, toffee, and coffee.

Raspberry-Lemon: A dark chocolate truffle with a strong berry presence that infiltrates the back of your palate, right near your nasal cavity. This one was a little too sweet for me.

Double-Dark Chocolate - Spicy: The first spicy one sent us for a loop! The website describes it as a "hint of spice" - it's a lot more than a hint to me! The heat doesn't hit you until after it breaks up in the mouth, really gaining its power once it touches the back of the throat.

Hazelnut Milk Chocolate - Spicy: A very nice blend of hazelnut and spice in milk chocolate. The hazelnut balanced the spice well, it was not nearly as powerful as the Double-Dark. The center had a bit of a crunch to it, almost toffee-like, with an instant taste of hazelnut followed by a prominent heat.

Raspberry-Lemon - Spicy: This one was a little deceiving, both the MiL and I tasted orange followed by strong heat. The amount of spice really overpowered the subtle hints of raspberry, leaving only a bland citrus. I didn't enjoy either of the raspberry-lemon flavors.

Cappuccino - Spicy: My second favorite, right behind the plain milk chocolate. Very creamy with a hint of espresso. Similar crunch in the ganache as with the hazelnut truffle. This one didn't seem as spicy as the others, playing up the coffee flavor by complimenting it with spice instead of negating the other flavors in the chocolate. I enjoyed it very much.

Center

Habanero Chocolate: Oh dear sweet baby Jesus in a manger was this baby spicy. In the very beginning when it first hits the tongue the dark chocolate seems a nice complement to the heavy spicy, but once the chocolate is broken up while chewing the only thing noticeable is insane flames jumping out of your mouth. I actually think I could have caught things on fire just by breathing on them after eating this chocolate.

Not Pictured

Habanero Caramel: An innocent looking, chewy soft caramel - that will very happily burn your teeth right out of your friggin' mouth. After trying a mere third of a piece of this caramel both the MiL and I downed no less than sixteen ounces of icy cold water to dampen the hell-fires stoked by this demon candy. This baby should require a waiver. It mustered a " Hmm...pretty hot." out of typically unflappable Mr. TA. I would only wish this bearer of heart-burn on my worst enemy.

In the end, Cowgirl Chocolates are a lovely treat for any pepper-head in your life. I would not recommend them to anyone who does not like spicy foods - except for the Milk Chocolate truffles, those are outstanding. Give them those. Anyone who does love spicy foods - and chocolate - will be in heaven.

Thank you Foodbuzz and thank you Cowgirl Chocolates for letting me try these tasty treats - I can't wait to see what's in store next!

Bûche de Noël

You'll have to excuse my reticence, I've been quite the busy bird lately. There's nothing like cross country travel to distract you from regular blogging, eh? Let's just say that there's been high levels of stress, anxiety and a great deal of money put out by the airline that was supposed to fly us to our intended destination. I'll be sure to fill you in on all the gory details at a later date...

But for now it's Daring Baker time!

This month's challenge is brought to us by the adventurous Hilda from Saffron and Blueberry and Marion from Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux.
They have chosen a French Yule Log by Flore from Florilege Gourmand

I remember checking to see what the challenge was in the beginning of the month and my tummy doing a little flip-flop in response. I'm always up for a challenge in the kitch, but when my month of December was dominated by a week of brutal final exams and two weeks spent on the opposite coast for the holidays - I wasn't hugely excited to spend my one free week attempting to conquer the Herculean feat that is the French Yule Log. But, I am a baker from time to time - and I'm most definitely Daring (some would just say kind of slow...) so I pulled myself up by my very whiny bootstraps and asked my MiL if I could make it in her kitchen while we were there. She, being the general bad ass that she is, agreed, and so my journey of general frustration, utter annoyance, and bubbling internal cursing was begun.

See, I kind of have this little problem of not being too fond of the sweeter side of the kitchen. I'm not a huge fan of cookies, cakes, candies, pastries, you name it. So it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense that I'm a Daring Baker, because every month it's something sweet (thank gawd for the two savory challenges) I immediately start wondering who I can pawn all this sugary goodness off on. Usually it's the men and women that work alongside Mr. TA. This challenge I was all set to foist the 20 million calorie behemoth off on my in-laws. Always a good plan, eh? But the point of my redundant rambling is that I don't get a huge amount of joy out of making something I'm not really going to eat, but it's surely expanding my repertoire of baked goods. And I guess that's a good thing. It's just an interesting balance of learning new things in the kitchen and not really giving a damn about what I'm making. But the challenge is fun, so onward I whine.

If I could sum up my feelings about this challenge in one photo, it would be this:



I don't think there's really any other way to feel about a concoction that requires 4 layers of gelatinous mousse, a wedge of crème brûlée, a sliver of crisp, a smattering of ganache and a base of dacquoise - all topped off with a coating of gelatinous icing. Especially when you're making all of this in someone else's kitchen. Thankfully the MiL has a very, very nice kitchen with all of the lovely accoutrement needed to accomplish such a grandiose feat. She even recently bought Trogdor Jr. So, it really wasn't all that bad, just a little discombobulating.

The challenge was that we had to incorporate all six elements of a traditional French Yule Log, and assemble them in a fashion resembling a log.

1) Dacquoise Biscuit
2) Mousse
3) Ganache Insert
4) Praline (Crisp) Insert
5) Creme Brulee Insert
6) Icing

The flavor combination was left to our discretion.

I decided on a vanilla/white chocolate flavor combo for this challenge. The only way I like large amounts of chocolate is if they're infused with large amounts of mint, and we had members of the family who don't like mint chocolate. Enter the supposed-to-be-all-white vanilla French Yule Log. I'll explain the resultant appearance later.

I started off by making the dacquoise. Dacquoise is a French biscuit made of crushed nuts, sugar, flour, and egg whites. It's incredibly delicious and will assuredly be making another appearance in my kitchen. I chose hazelnut instead of the original almond flavor, because we all prefer hazelnuts. This was my favorite part of the recipe. Or, to be exact, the only part of the recipe I actually liked. Make this. Your mouth will thank you. Your hips...maybe not so much.



The next step was to make the Praline Crisp Insert. I wanted my log to be all white, and the recipe didn't allow for that, so I made a really thin rice crispy treat. Because I'm ghetto like that. I will have you know that it was pretty effin' delicious.

After that I made the crème brûlée, something I've made many times before but with different recipes. For some reason this recipe took forever and a day to set up, much longer than the stated hour in a 210 F oven. Closer to 2 hours.

After the crème brûlée I made the ganache and started on the vanilla mouse. The mousse was a pretty painless process that turned out nicely. I'm not a big fan of adding the gelatin to it though, it gave a funky texture and left little lumps because it wouldn't dissolve all the way. I realize it's required for structural integrity, but were I ever to take enough drugs to consider making this again I would omit the gelatin.



Assembly was pretty straight forward, line a loaf pan with plastic wrap and parchment paper, layer of mousse, crème brûlée, layer of mousse, crisp insert, layer of mousse, white chocolate ganache, tiny layer of mousse, dacquoise biscuit.

Freeze.

Then cover with the icing.

Sounds pretty painless, eh?

Not so much.

As soon as that icing hit the frozen mousse it turned into a rubberized nightmare, reminiscent of Gak. The annoying part was that I didn't notice until after I'd already started trying to embellish the top with some melted dark chocolate.



Freakin' outstanding.

So, instead I just covered it in some nice dark chocolate the MiL had around the house. No longer all nice and pretty and white all over, but at least there isn't any dilapidated, lame-ass looking, wannabe snowflakes on top.

Except I didn't think about the fact that the chocolate I melted was real nice and hot, and the log was still real nice and frozen. So it split all down the sides and you could see through it.

YAY.

So I covered it in crushed walnuts.

And restrained myself from dumping the whole damn thing in the trash.



The recipe recommended leaving the yule log in the refrigerator for about an hour to thaw, but after being in the fridge for an hour and then transported in a car for about 45 minutes, it was still very cold and the crème brûlée was frozen solid. Not exactly the greatest textures in the world if you're not a fan of frozen desserts.

Final thoughts?

Mousse - meh.

Crème brûlée - meh.

Rice Crispy Treat - yum.

Ganache - meh.

Icing - GTFO

Hazelnut Dacquoise - Oh. My. Gawd. Get in my mouth.
(Mr. TA again; remember, that's "dah-koo-see".)

Everything as a whole - Not my cup of tea, but I am very glad I did it. If only so I can say that I have.

I'd like to thank Hilda of Saffron & Blueberry and Marion of Il en Faut Peu Pour Etre Heureux for giving all us Daring Bakers such a Daring Challenge this month. Even though I didn't like it, it was still a wonderful experience to be had. Please be sure to check out all the other lovely Daring Bakers this month, there are some beautiful French Yule Logs to be devoured with the eyes.

Happy Holidays!