A Daring Bakers Challenge - Flourless Valentino Cake with Raspberry Ice Cream

Another great challenge from the Daring Bakers Community, Thanks for the oppotunity! Who would have known a flourless chocolate cake could taste so wonderful? To go with the chocolate challenge, I added raspberries to David Lebovitz gorgeous Vanilla Ice Cream (I made a few other alternations as well) - (I hope he'll forgive me) making this a chocolate & raspberries experience.

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.

The Chocolate Valentino recipe - by Chef Wan

454 grams of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped

146 grams of unsalted butter (use a few spoonsfuls to butter the form)

5 large eggs separated

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.

While your chocolate butter mixture is cooling. Butter your pan and line with a parchment circle then butter the parchment.

Separate the egg yolks from the egg whites and put into two medium/large bowls.

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).

With the same beater beat the egg yolks together.

Add the egg yolks to the cooled chocolate.

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.

Pour batter into prepared pan, the batter should fill the pan 3/4 of the way full, and bake at 375F/190C. 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.

Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

Vanilla Raspberry Ice Cream - adapted from David Lebovitz

250 ml whole milk
A pinch of salt
150 g. sugar
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

500ml heavy cream
5 large egg yolks
600 g. raspberries (half was strained, half was mashed - I added a couple of tbsp of sugar to the raspberries)

Heat milk, salt, and sugar in a saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla bean into the milk and add the pod to the milk. Let it cool.

Pour the cream into a bowl (David Lebivitz uses a larger bowl filled with ice and water to put the bowl with the cream into - I skipped that part)

In a separate bowl, stir together the egg yolks. Rewarm the milk then gradually pour some of the milk into the yolks, whisking constantly as you pour. Scrape the warmed yolks and milk back into the saucepan.

Cook over low heat, stirring constantly until the custard thickens then strain the custard into the heavy cream. Stir until cool, and add the mashed and strained raspberries.

Use an ice cream maker to freeze or put the mixture in the freezer and stir occasionally to make the ice cream nice and creamy.

This makes about a liter of superb Vanilla Raspberry Ice Cream.