Daring Bakers

I suppose I should work on my creative title(ing?)
So this is my first recipe with the seemingly huge online baking community "Daring Bakers" =]
It seems that the deal is someone chooses a recipe and everyone follows it adding their own little touches, then posts it on the same day… and this month was a flourless Chocolate Valentino cake and we were to choose our own flavor of ice cream?
The mandatory two lines are as follows:

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.

So I chose cherry ice cream because its just been a flavor I've enjoyed using lately, and it turned out beautifully, one of my favorite ice creams ever. I also decided to use small ramekin dishes to prep the cakes and attempted chocolate wraps to improve the appearance, but they didn't go that well…

Here is the cake recipe:

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. {link of folding demonstration}
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.

And the ice cream:

Cherry Ice Cream

Ingredients:

1/4 cup cherry juice concentrate 1/2 cup fat free milk 1 cup vanilla low-fat yogurt 1 cup heavy cream

1/2 cup white sugar 1 pinch salt 1 cup frozen dark sweet cherries 2 teaspoons almond extract

Directions:

1.	Place the cherry juice, milk, yogurt, and heavy cream into the bowl of a blender. Add the sugar, salt, cherries, and almond extract. Puree until only small bits of the cherries remain.
2.	Pour into a 1 1/2 quart ice cream maker and freeze according to manufacturer's directions.

I couldn't find cherry juice concentrate so I just took some of the frozen cherries, thawed them and blended them with some sugar and water, and I also used cherry flavored yogurt, not vanilla =]

*i apologize for the spacing of this post... there is something wrong with my computer/me and I can't fix it....