Daring Baker's February Challenge

For the Love of ChocolateDaring Bakers’ February 2009 ChallengeThe February Challenge comes to you from Wendy at wmpesblog (Arizona) and Dharm at Dad - Baker and Chef (Malaysia).

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.February’s challenge is a Flourless Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Valentino, inspired by Malaysia’s “most flamboyant food ambassador”, Chef Wan. Recipe comes from Sweet Treats by Chef Wan



Here are the cast of characters for this delicious cake. As we are a family of dark chocolate lovers, it was easy to decide what type of chocolate to use. We've loved the Guittard chocolate in the past and it was perfect for the cake.


We started off melting the chocolate with the butter in a homemade double boiler. In other words, a bowl set over some simmering water. It took some definite resolve not to grab some pound cake and dip it into the melted chocolate. We love our fondue in this household and this step sure looked ready to dip into to.

While the chocolate cooled a bit, The Librarian (I need to come up with a more creative name for this child wonder!) took on the daunting task of whipping up the egg whites. This is an important step in the cake, if they aren't whipped long enough, the cake won't turn out right and if too long, they'll get rubbery. He managed it perfectly even under all that stress.

Here's the cake fresh from the oven. By this point, we were ready to just grab some forks and dig in. A little restraint went a long way though.

Time for dessert! The Librarian is ready to dig into his piece. After about 5 bites, he decided that he didn't really like it though. Too rich for his tastes. He said he'll try it again tomorrow and see if he changes his mind.

We were also supposed to make some ice cream to go with the cake. That just didn't happen this time around. Next time though as we all agreed that some homemade vanilla ice cream would be just heavenly. We substituted a mint ice cream and it was delicious!