Chocolate Valentino Cake … Braveheart Daring Bakers

Lucy Van Pelt (in Peanuts, by Charles M. Schulz)

The hosts for the romantic month of February were Wendy @ wmpesblog (Arizona), and my dear friend & DB mentor, Dharm @ Dad – Baker and Chef (Malaysia), who are both are passionate about baking for their families. Their choice had DB’s across the globe jumping with chocolate joy – a Flourless Chocolate Cake, Chocolate Valentino, inspired by Malaysia’s “most flamboyant food ambassador”, Chef Wan.The recipe consists of 3 simple ingredients and how you interpret them is part of the challenge. The simplicity of this recipe gives credit to the ingredients much in the same way of French baguette.
-This recipe comes together very quickly with a hand mixer.
-This is a very decadent cake that will sink a little as it cools but will still hold its shape.
-Very dense and fudgy cake that tastes divine.
-The top forms a light crust kind of like a brownieChocolate Valentino
Recipe comes from Sweet Treats by Chef Wan
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 separatedMethod:

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. The top of the cake will look similar to a brownie and a cake tester will appear wet. (The smaller ramekins & moulds took approximately 15-18 minutes)
10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

For a real Valentino, bake it in a heart shaped pan or cut it out into a heart shape. You may use any shape pan that gives you an area of 50” – 6×8 or 7×7. An 8” spring form pan works with great results as do smaller pans or ramekins. An instant read thermometer is highly recommended (I didn’t use one though).

The cake was full of ultimate chocolaty goodness, a cake as good as the quality of chocolate used, & a challenge quite simple & very indulgent. It was pure chocolate nirvana.

Made the little beauties one morning. The electricity played truant as usual, & when it returned I took a chance. I didn’t go in for an imported chocolate, too expensive to risk under the circumstances. Used a dark one that is Indian. Was e x t r e m e l y lucky, coz it disappeared 10 minutes after I was done. The note about the ramekins in the challenge was wonderful. I went for those so I could make them in 2 batches. Made 4 in my heart shaped tray too. All of them puffed up beautifully, then kind of collapsed, but sat there looking very pretty!

There was an additional challenge, a first for DB’s – MAKE YOUR OWN ICE-CREAM

I did also whip up a hand-made ice-cream, though am still am not game enough to try egg yolks in ice-cream. Whipped up an eggless strawberry ice-cream, adapted from Wendy’s Philadelphia style ice-cream. Just a litre of low fat fresh cream, a bunch of strawberries, some vanilla sugar…& it’s ‘hand-made’…read…no ice-cream machine here!! The ice-cream was delicious too, & lasted for a few servings even after the cake was gone. The boy later asked me how I got the vanilla flavour into the strawberry ice-cream! That means my home-made vanilla sugar works. YAY!! I got the idea of the hearts on the ice-cream from Nic’s post @ Cherrapeno. You can find the recipe for the coulis on my strawberry panna cotta recipe here.

Freeze for at least 4-6 hours, or better still, overnight. I generally bring the container into the fridge 30 minutes prior to serving the ice-cream.