The Chocolate Valentino

*ahem* 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. Holy son of a motherless goat.. what a fakkin day! It's a quarter of midnight on Daring Baker Challenge Reveal day and I'm just now writing up my post. And no, smarty farties, I didn't just finish my challenge! We had guests over today and they JUST LEFT. Jebus. Anyhoo.. short and sweet.. which is basically a great description for my lil mini Chocolate Valentinos! I made the full recipe and ended up with 4 mini cakes made in ramekins and 2 heart shaped mini cakes made in these lil silicone heart shaped pans that came with some spring form pans I purchased years ago. I think I must of over-baked a bit because my cakes didn't turn out as fudgy as a lot of other Daring Bakers' cakes turned out.. they weren't dry though, just not as fudgy. The taste was okay. I used 71% bittersweet Callebaut chocolate which I adore for it's rich chocolate flavor. Unfortunately, this didn't carry over into the cake for me. My cake was almost bland. I got a good hit of the chocolate as an after taste, but it didn't send the usual POW to my brain when I first took a bite. I've made two other flourless chocolate cakes before and I'd still have to say that the Chocolate Intensity Cake found in Tish Boyle's The Cake Book is the most awesome-est in true orgasmic chocolate decadence out there. Not saying this cake was bad.. far from it. Just not exactly what I had expected.. it was more like a rich brownie than what I think of as a flourless cake. I paired my cake with Vietnamese Coffee Ice Cream that I found in my new "bible" The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz. This ice cream was knock your socks off good. So much better than just your average coffee ice cream, the flavor was like a PUNCH of coffee goodness. I will so be making this ice cream again. *slurp* Many, many thanks to Dharm and Wendy for such a fantastic challenge.. I used my ice cream maker to make the ice cream, but I've read so many wonderful posts about those that made it without a machine and how delighted they were that it turned out so well. :) Oh and well.. I can't help myself, I'm sooooooooo excited - HUGE ANNOUNCEMENT! We're scheduled to launch the new website on March 7th - that's one week from today and for those of you who are saying, "yeah, we've heard this before" and rolling your eyes, just stop it. Didn't your mom tell you they could stick that way?? But yes, seriously, come hell or high water, the website is launching in one week and it's fakking gorgeous. OHMYGOD! Huge, huge, giant enormous thanks to the GENIUS we call Scott Blitstein of ESeMBe Technical Services and Patricia Furtado, one of our own Daring Bakers and an AMAZING web designer. They busted heineys to put together what Ivonne and I think is the most exciting, fun, chic, whimsical, fun, entertaining, awesome website for our Daring Bakers AND our Daring Cooks (to be announced soon!) EVER!! So no one make plans for next Saturday.. ya'll are going to kick yourselves squarely in your own heineys if you miss the grand "opening"! :) xoxo