It was time. I couldn't put it off any more. I became a Daring Baker, a culinary lunatic goddess obsessed with testing a challenging new recipe each month with hundreds of other bakers around the globe.

This month's Daring Bakers challenge came from Wendy at wmpesblog and Dharm at Dad - Baker and Chef, Chef Wan's Chocolate Valentino with homemade ice cream. I have to admit, I was a little disappointed when I saw the February Daring Bakers challenge, my first ever. This is the group that tackled a behemoth six-recipes-in-one yule log in December and the (apparently) infernal Martha Stewart crepe cake more than a year ago. I've made ice cream once or twice or 90 times. And a three-ingredient flourless chocolate cake should be simple, right?

I was entranced by a tiny little string of words in the instructions: "If you are daring, try white chocolate." Immediately, I envisioned tiny white-and-dark-chocolate yin-yangs of flourless, eggy goodness. Nevermind that precision and attention to detail are not my strong suit. I would just prepare the batter twice, once with dark, once with white, magically pour the batter into ramekins maintaining the yin-yang shape, and be effortlessly amazing.

Burghilicious baking hubris, exposed. Drat.

So, a few notes.
1. I do not know how to work my Kitchenaid. Apparently after 6 months of ownership and heavy use,  I still have not yet calibrated the level of the beater correctly, because I whipped the top 3/4 of the egg whites and not the bottom part. This probably resulted in me over-whipping the egg whites that did foam up, which was expressly warned against in the instructions.
2. The white chocolate turned into a viscous, stringy mass that wouldn't be out of place on the set of Alien. Turns out that white chocolate has a higher fat content than dark, so it would have been prudent to cut the butter in the white chocolate by about half. Noted, a day after said viscous goo incident.
3. Those perfect little yin-yang in my head? Manual dexterity challenges aside, because of the fat difference noted above, the white parts needed to bake a little longer than the dark parts. So yin-yangs didn't work so well, but the stacked white-on-dark (pictured above) was perfectly done. And cutest.
4. I really, really loved the affordable-but-awesome Guittard baking chocolate from Mon Aimee Chocolat. I shall have to write a post about this cacao wonderland.

Fortunately, there aren't a whole lot of errors that spicy milk chocolate ice cream can't solve! I used Dave Lebovitz' Aztec Chocolate Ice Cream recipe, which came out like a dream. I'll share that recipe soon. The all-white chocolate cake shown on the left below, which came into being due to a measuring error on my part, was especially delicious with this rich and complex chocolate treat.


Below is my revision of the challenge recipe to make the layered black-and-white cake.

Flourless Black and White Chocolate Cakes
Adapted from Chef Wan's Sweet Treats

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate (70% or greater cocoa)
8 ounces white chocolate
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter*, cut into chunks
5 large eggs, separated

You're going to construct a double boiler, twice. I suggest finding two metal or glass bowls that just barely fit into one of your saucepans. Put an inch or less of water in the pan - little enough that the bowls do not touch the water - and bring it to a boil. Turn the heat down to a simmer.

In the first bowl, combine the dark chocolate and 5 tablespoons butter. Place the bowl in the sauce pan and heat gently, stirring often, until chocolate and butter are completely melted. Set aside to cool at room temperature. Repeat with the white chocolate and the remaining 3 tablespoons butter.

While the chocolates are cooling, butter 8 three-inch ramekins.** Line each ramekin with a parchment circle, then butter the parchment.  Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form. Do not over-whip or the cake will be dry. Divide in half.

Beat the egg yolks together. Add half of the beaten yolks to the room temperature white chocolate, stirring constantly.*** Add the other half to the room temperature dark chocolate.

Gently fold 1/3 of half of the whipped egg whites into the white chocolate. Follow with the remaining 2/3, folding just until no white is visible. Repeat with the other half of the egg whites and the dark chocolate.

Divide dark chocolate batter evenly among the 8 prepared ramekins, filling to about 1/3 full. Repeat with the white chocolate batter.

Bake for 20 minutes. Test a cake with an instant read thermometer at this point; the goal heat is 140 degrees F. If you don't have a thermometer, a cake tester will appear wet when you pull it out but the tops of the cakes will have developed a nice golden crust. Cool cakes on a rack for 10 minutes, then unmold and cool completely. If you are wise, you will serve with ice cream.

*The original recipe called for 10 total tablespoons of butter, which I divided equally between the dark and light chocolate. Based on later research and the ridiculous glop that my white-chocolate-butter-egg mixture originally produced, I've suggested cutting the butter for the white chocolate portion of the batter to just 3 tablespoons, giving you an 8 tablespoon total.
**I used 4 three-inchers and 2 four-inchers. And don't skip the parchment step. I was out of parchment so I skipped it, and I regretted it when I flipped my cakes.
***I got the Alien-esque white stringy goo on this step. It went away after vigorous beating, but I don't know why it happened.



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.