Chocolate Valentino - Daring Bakers - Heartless, Flourless Chocolate Cake

This may be a comment on my romantic life - but I baked my chocolate valentino in a round springform pan and then cut it in square serving pieces. Hooray, it's the last day of February and I'm having a dinner party tonight to give the winter a kick. There's still a foot of snow on the ground in Saratoga and it's cold today. I've been looking at the temperature in Firenze and it's nearly 70 degrees Farenheit and sunny! Why am I in this frozen tundra???

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.

I used couverture chocolate in my cake and mixed 4 parts of 70% dark chocolate and 6 parts 35% milk chocolate. This proved a great mix and the cake is dark and rich with a little sweetness. I used a whipped cream garnish in place of the ice cream -- can't think of ice cream when in this climate.

Brown out on Devils Food White Out Cake - TWD

This is a cake worthy of the cookbook cover - a real show stopper! I browned mine with as many of the crumbs as I could get on it -- so it's a browned out devil's food white out cake.

I ate this piece immediately after snapping the photo and found the strawberry was a perfect accompaniment. So, it's a longer walk with the dog and a couple more hours on the treadmill! Handing off the rest of the cake to my neighbors and friends.

This cake was much easier than I thought and way easier than the photograph would suggest!

Thanks to Stephanie for chosing the cake! Check out her blog at Confessions of a City Eater for the recipe for the Devil's Food White Out Cake.

Peanut Butter Scare - What's a Baker to Do?

There's a lot of misunderstanding of the peanut butter recall out there -- no doubt caused by one food scare rolling into the next. Last week I was shopping for peanut butter and a woman stopped me and asked wasn't I afraid of eating peanut butter because of the contamination. I explained the new recall and that it didn't impact peanut butter. I love peanut butter and could hardly ever give it up. When I was a kid, it was Peter Pan but as I've gotten older, I can't stand it because it's so sweet. Now I prefer natural crunchy peanut butter -- love Teddie Super Cunchy Natural -- just peanuts and salt.

Last Wednesday's New York Times had an article about it in the Dining session. What a baker is to do is make their own peanut butter confections. Included in the article was a recipe for peanut butter cookies adapted from Chris Kimball of Cook's Illustrated. From the recipe I could almost taste those cookies, so much that I had to make a batch. I deviated from the NYT recipe by adding a handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips to half of the cookies. Here's the recipe -- adapted to ingredients in my pantry:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp. each of baking soda, baking powder and salt

1 1/4 cup roasted salted peanuts

1/2 pound unsalted butter (softened to room temp)

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 cup Teddie super crunchy natural peanut butter

2 large eggs

2 tsp. vanilla extract

Handful of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Adjust oven rack to low center position. Heat oven to 350 degrees. In a medium bowl, sift flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Set aside. Place peanuts in a food processor and pulse until the texture of bread crumbs. Set aside.
2. In bowl of electric stand mixer, beat butter until creamy. Add sugars and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes, scaping sides as necessary. Beat in crunchy peanut butter until fully incorporated, followed by eggs and vanilla. Slow mixer to low and gradually add flour mixture. Fold in ground peanuts with a rubber spatula just until incorporated. If adding chocolate chips, fold them into all or part of the dough as well.
3. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Drop dough onto sheet in spoonfuls a little bigger than a golf ball (small ice cream scooper is perfect) about 2 inches apart. Dip a fork in cold water and then press the back into the dough, repeating to make a crisscross.
4. Bake until cookies are puffed and slightly brown along edges, but no on top, 10-12 minutes. Cool cookies on cookie sheet until set, about 3 minutes. Transfer to wire rack to cool completely.

The recipe produced 4-1/2 dozen cookies.

Dinner last night was a few peanut butter cookies and a glass of milk -- enjoy.

January Daring Bakers - Amaryllis Petal Tuiles

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Baking Soda and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angelique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.

My self-rating on this challenge was middling. I came up with a great inspiration for the form -- a beautiful amaryllis blooming in my front room but my presentation of the project was somewhat less spectacular. I sacrificed one of the petals of my flower to use as a shape for the cookies, and everything went smoothly through baking and shaping. My downfall was the final presentation. I decided to dip the tuiles tips in white chocolate but hurried it without following the proper crystallization process. The result was a mess. I hurried along this path by taking some red raspberries (frozen but picked by me last summer) and dipping them in the same white chocolate. That didn't work very well so I nuked the white chocolate a little more and attempted to drizzle it over my creation. Not a pretty sight as you can see! However, red raspberries, white chocolate and tuiles taste terrific. Need to work on the presentation!!

Cheers to all the Daring Bakers and wishing winter would end quickly. We are blanketed with about 4 feet of snow in New England and Northeastern New York.

TWD - Chocolate Gingerbread!

Gingerbread is not one of my favorite sweets -- but chocolate is! The result is that this week's TWD recipe is one that I would make again. The exact recipe can be found at Sherry Triffle, the blog of Heather who selected the challenge.

I changed the recipe slightly by baking it in smaller pans. I baked it in two 3 inch springform pans and 12 normal sized cupcakes. Following Dorie's note, I filled the pans about 2/3 full which worked out really well. Also, I cut the baking time to about 30 minutes.

TWD – Berry Surprise Cake

Struck out with this one! From the photo evidence, I made the genoise cake. When I pulled it out of the oven, it collapsed in the middle. I did a little research about why it collapsed and discovered that opening the oven can cause it to take a dip. Well, I probably opened the oven 3-4 times during baking. I was preparing to start over and decided to taste the sponge. I didn’t like it – not the texture or the taste -- so I abandoned the project.

Ooh-lah-lah French Pear Tart - TWD

Dorie's recipe note that this is such an easy recipe is totally on the mark. I had some sweet tart crusts frozen and pulled them out and used canned pears. I made them in small 6 inch tart pans and it took about a half or more pears per tart. The recipe was so easy to make. I'm constantly impressed by Dorie's pastries -- that they may sound complicated but are easy to make and produce tasty pastries. Thanks Dorie - I'll make this again!