Daring Bakers: Chocolate Valentino with Ice Cream

Here it is - my first Daring Bakers challenge result!


The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE's blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. They 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 cake requires only three ingredients - chocolate, eggs, and butter - and pretty much tastes exactly like the chocolate that you use. I selected Scharffen Berger 70%, which is dark and not very sweet, with subtle fruity hints. The cake is supposed to be very dense and fudgy, but I'm sorry to say mine came out rather dry. There could be a few reasons for this. I've heard that the cake is best after sitting for a day, but I ate my first serving the day I made the cake, and my second serving straight out of the fridge. Other servings (which we gave away) that weren't straight out of the refridgerator looked a bit more moist, but I can't say for sure. The other possible cause for the dryness might be the egg whites; the recipe calls for stiff peaks, which I thought I had, but notes that overbeating may cause a dry cake. I guess my peaks should have been a little softer.


The challenge hosts, Wendy and Dharm, each provided a vanilla ice cream recipe (one custard-style, one Philadelphia-style), but they also stated that we didn't have to make vanilla - we were free to experiment. I made a custard-based coffee ice cream (since Dan loves coffee!). I hobbled together a recipe (included below) after looking at dozens of non-coffee recipes (every coffee recipe I could find used instant - yuck!). After spilling half of the ice cream mix (oops), I dumped the rest in my ice cream machine only to discover that the motor had died. It wasn't completely gone - a sickly hum emanated from somewhere within - but it couldn't summon the power to turn the paddle, so it was useless. I had to pour the mix in to a Tupperware container and use the old "take it out of the freezer to stir every half hour" method, which worked fine, but it wasn't as smooth as it would have been with a machine.


I also made a bourbon caramel sauce, which was fantastic. I used Bulleit, which has undertones of tobacco and coffee, so it worked very well with the coffee ice cream. The caramel sauce is the subject of my next video, which will be posted here Monday, so come back then for the recipe. (If you haven't seen the first video, click here to watch it.)


CUSTARD-STYLE COFFEE ICE CREAM
2 cups heavy cream, divided
1 cup 2% milk
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
3/4 cup coffee

Put milk, sugar, and 1 cup of the cream in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until just before boiling. Do not let it boil! Remove from heat and let cool for five minutes. In a small bowl, whisk the eggs, then slowly add a small amount of warm milk mixture (about 1/2 cup) while whisking rapidly to temper the eggs. Add egg mixture to the saucepan with the remaining milk mixture and stir. Return to moderate heat and cook (without boiling) until thick enough to coat the back of a metal spoon. Remove from heat and stir in coffee and remaining cream. Place custard in refridgerator for several hours or overnight. For freezing, if using a machine, follow manufacturer's directions; to freeze without a machine, follow David Lebowitz's directions here.
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.

Dinner, Part 3: Chocolate Peanut-Butter Cake

Here it is: the last (and best?) part of Sunday's dinner. I wanted to make something but had limited ingredients in the house and didn't want to go to the store since the snow was coming down hard. I also wanted something rich and gooey. I had very little butter and only three squares of Baker's chocolate (no cocoa powder), so I couldn't make my usual chocolate cake. After searching for recipes online and scouring my cookbooks, I finally came across a recipe that would work with what I had.


I found the recipe in All About Baking, a 1935 publication from the Consumer Service Department of General Foods Corporation, the producers of Swan's Down Cake Flour, Calumet Baking Powder, and other brands. It's a great little book containing about 100 recipes. What I like most about it is the concept: twenty-three "picture lessons" use a recipe to demonstrate a technique, while several related recipes for each lesson follow. For example, after the Lady Baltimore Cake recipe, there are three recipes for different cakes made using the same basic method. For this cake, I used the caramel devil's food cake recipe, transcribed below. The biggest difference between this and other devil's food recipes I have used is that this one calls for brown sugar, which I imagine works nicely with the caramel frosting.

I wasn't sure I wanted to tackle caramel frosting without a candy thermometer, and I'd pretty much decided on making peanut butter frosting anyway. I had a bit of peanut butter from two jars left (salted and unsalted). I only use natural peanut butter, and I usually get the Teddie brand since it is tasty, cheap, and made right here in New England. I started using natural peanut butter a few years ago when I realized how much junk they put in the processed brands: corn syrup, hydrogenated oils, and all kinds of unpronounceable chemical compounds. By contrast, Teddie contains peanuts and, if you get the salted version, salt. That's it. Since I grew up eating Skippy, it took a while for my taste buds to adjust, but now natural peanut butter tastes better to me.


Anyway, for this peanut butter frosting, I scraped out the two jars and ended up with about 2/3 cup of peanut butter. Normally for a peanut-butter frosting I would use some butter, but I'd used the last of my butter in the cake. So I just added powdered sugar and milk, alternately, beating well between each addition, until I found a consistency that I liked. I stopped when the frosting had a thick but gooey texture, similar to caramel, and I didn't so much spread the frosting on the cake as drop it on there, the frosting falling in a lazy drape from the spatula and, upon contact with the cake top, oozing to a smooth finish. After some time, the frosting firmed up, and the end result looked somewhat like fondant. To finish the cake, I dusted the top with sifted chocolate malt powder (Ovaltine) and a sprinkling of kosher salt. Some people have asked me about the salt; I think salt intensifies the taste of the chocolate, and injects the rather soft taste of the peanut butter frosting with more spunk. It was a risk, but one I was pretty sure Amanda and Gordie wouldn't mind, since I knew that Amanda likes chocolate with pretzels.

The end result: really good stuff. So good that we each had a small second serving while playing Yahtzee after our guests left. Thankfully Dan took the rest in to work the next morning so we didn't have to face temptation again. And if you were reading last week, you know that I said I was avoiding sweets. For the most part, I have been. But I decided before I made it that I would have a piece (or two) of this cake, and I'm glad I did. So worth it! But don't take my word for it. Try it yourseldf.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

Caramel Devil's Food Cake
adapted from All About Home Baking

2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter or other shorting
1 1/4 cups brown sugar, firmly packed
2 eggs, unbeaten
3 squares unsweetened chocolate, melted
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Combine flour and baking soda. In a separate bowl, cream butter thoroughly, add sugar gradually, and cream together until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add chocolate and blend. Add flour, alternately with milk, a small amount at a time. Beat after each addition until smooth. Add vanilla. Bake in two deep greased 9-inch layer pans for 25 minutes.*

*My cake passed the toothpick test after only 19 minutes, so I took it out then and it was done. I would suggest checking on your cake around the 20-minute mark just in case.

Gooey Peanut Butter Frosting

2/3 cup natural peanut butter
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1/3 cup milk

Beat peanut butter at medium speed with about 1 cup powdered sugar. Alternately add milk and remaining powdered sugar, beating well after each addition. Adjust amounts until desired consistency is reached.

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming...

I promised a picture of this month's share, which we just picked up on Saturday, but due to technical difficulties (i.e., I left my camera elsewhere and can't get it back until this afternoon), that will have to come tomorrow. Instead, I offer a sweet and salty treat to perk up your Monday morning.

Remember the chocolate pretzel tart I mentioned in my review of the Harrison? Well, Food and Wine got The Harrison's pastry chef to share her recipe as part of a feature on milk chocolate in this month's issue. The recipe is online here, so you can try it at home! I would, but after a December filled with cookies and biscotti and all kinds of indulgence, I'm trying to cut back on sweets for a while. If you don't like chocolate with pretzels (shock! horror!!), you can try one of the other recipes, found here, such as milk chocolate pots-du-creme, or milk chocolate cookies with malted cream, or... okay, I'd better stop before my willpower disappears. Back to my sugar-free, caffeine-free, vanilla tea, which tastes like cake batter and can hopefully distract me from all that chocolatey temptation.

The Harrison, NYC

I'm back from a fantastic but short trip to the city. It was great to finally see the movie I worked on three years ago and to meet up with some old friends. My mom and I carpooled down to New Haven, took a train in to Penn Station, and stayed at my friend Grace's apartment. Grace joined us for the movie and for dinner beforehand. She is a devoted foodie and assembled a fabulous list of restaurant options; after some debate we narrowed the list to two and Grace made the final choice of The Harrison.

Please excuse the lousy photos; the restaurant's candlelight made for great atmosphere but terrible shooting conditions. It was just too dark and I had to resort to using the flash. With food this tempting, we could barely hold off on digging in long enough for me to take pictures, so I snapped just one quick photo of each dish.

Above is Mom's appetizer of black mission figs with blue cheese and prosciutto; it was absolutely delicious and something we will definitely make at home. It's such a simple but satisfying combination.

Grace opted for the oven-roasted sardines with breadcrumbs and garlic oil. It was tasty, but I'm not sure I'm a sardine fan. I've only had them once before, at my second grade class's Oktoberfest (my teacher was German).

And here is the dish that caught my eye from the very first moment I opened the online menu: kabocha, delicata, and brussels sprout salad with pumpkin seed vinaigrette. It was spectacular - the squashes perfectly roasted, the textures pleasingly various, and the sprouts - oh, the sprouts! The sprouts had been marinated and were very, very vinegary, which was fine with me, because I love vinegar. They were plump and juicy and when I bit down they let loose bursts of tangy, green flavor. Brussels sprouts are my new favorite vegetable, and while so far I've tried roasting and pan-searing, now I'm determined to make some sour, mouth-puckering, marinated sprouts like these.

Apparently I'm not alone in my love of vinegar; the chef at The Harrison must love it, too, as he uses it liberally. Sometimes a bit too much, it seems. This is Mom's entree of red snapper with graffiti eggplant, tomatoes, and fregola (a Sardinian pasta akin to couscous). The snapper had a really nice texture, with a surprisingly crisp crust, considering it didn't appear to be breaded, and a nice, flaky interior. But it was a little bland and didn't quite stand up to the robust flavors offered up by the rest of the dish. The server had warned us that the graffiti eggplant was very sweet that day; the sweetness wasn't a problem, but the excessive vinegar was. On its own, I rather liked the eggplant (again, I love vinegar), but it was too much vinegar for my Mom, who ordered the dish, and it definitely overpowered the delicate flavor of the snapper.

I ordered the Black Angus flank steak with red potatoes, pommery mustard, and sweet red onions. I love, love, love stone-ground mustard, and since no other entree really jumped out and screamed "EAT ME!" I ordered this. It was a good choice; the steak was incredible tender, the potatoes and onions were perfect, and there was just the right amount of mustard. The greens that you can see peeking out from under the onions were also doused with vinegar, but since there weren't a ton of greens, it was just the right pop to wake up the tastebuds.

Grace chose the monkfish special with broccoli rabe and spaghetti squash and I believe she enjoyed it. (Grace, if you're reading, can you weigh in in the comments?) She certainly came closer to finishing her entree than either Mom or I did. That's another thing about The Harrison- the portions are quite large. I hardly ever leave anything on my plate when I go out to eat, but I left probably a quarter to a third of my food on the plate. Not because it wasn't good, but because I didn't have room.

Of course, not being able to finish our entrees didn't stop us from ordering dessert. The three of us split the chocolate pretzel tart with sea salt potato chip and malted anglaise. The cream on top seemed to be creme fraiche; Grace also detected a hint of creme fraiche in the chocolate fudge filling of the tart. The crust was similar to a graham cracker crust, only made with crushed pretzels. The tart was good, the chocolate very rich, but I think the salt could have been stronger. It was a little too subtle.

As you can see, we had quite a feast. Not pictured: an order of duck fat fries with malt vinegar aioli. It was the first time I had duck fat fries and I was suitably impressed. I kept thinking they were like regular fries, but then the richer and more complex flavor would rise up. We also started the meal with cocktails - Mom and Grace had cranberry-ginger martinis, which were delicious! I'm not usually a martini drinker, but these were so smooth going down. We're going to try to recreate them for Thanksgiving. I ordered an Apple Bulleit, which was a blend of bourbon, apple cider, lemon juice, grenadine, and something else that I can't remember. It was very good; Mom thought it was too sweet, but it didn't taste sweet to me at all. It tasted like autumn - fresh apples and pumpkin pie spices! I also had a glass of O'Leary Walker 2005 Shiraz, which I enjoyed very much; it had a wonderful smell and a plummy taste that stood up well against strong flavors in the food.

Overall, our meal at The Harrison was satisfying, with interesting choices and food that was generally well-prepared, but certainly not perfect. If, like me, you have a taste for the sour stuff, order away; otherwise you may want to ask your server about how much vinegar a dish contains before making your selection.

The Harrison
355 Greenwich St.
New York, NY