It’s the end of the month and time for a Daring Baker’s post again! In the spirit of Valentine’s Day we were instructed to make a flourless chocolate cake and accompany it with an ice cream of our choice. Having missed the last two challenges cause I’m a total lame-o, I was mega excited about doing this challenge. In fact, I actually didn’t procrastinate like I usually do and made it ahead of time! High five, Rebecca!

The February 2009 challenge is hosted by Wendy of WMPE’s blog and Dharm of Dad ~ Baker & Chef. They 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.

This cake is extremelyyy chocolatey, which is perfect for all you chocolate lovers out there. I used a huge block of dark chocolate so the ice cream was definitely needed to tone down the extreme richness of this cake. Seriously, it’s so rich that it’s hard to eat it plain, but I’m sure there are some chocolate loving people out there that would have no problem with it. I also covered my cake in brown sugar whip cream to assist in toning down the chocolateyness.

Some of the things that they told us to keep in mind while making this cake is that you should use your favorite chocolate. This cake will taste EXACTLY like the chocolate you use. This cake also has a high cocoa percentage, which increases the bitterness of a cake. If you want a sweeter cake, then use milk chocolate. Also, some people were able to make this cake with white chocolate, but it isn’t the easiest thing to accomplish because white chocolate is not the same as real chocolate. If you do produce a cake with white chocolate it won’t be the prettiest thing in the world, but I’m sure it’ll taste great.

Note on recipe – the recipe consists of 3 simple
ingredients and how you interpret them is part of the challenge. The
simplicity of this recipe gives credit to the ingredients much in the
same way of French baguette.
-This recipe comes together very quickly with a hand mixer.
-This is a very decadent cake that will sink a little as it cools but will still hold its shape.
-Very dense and fudgy cake that tastes divine.
-The top forms a light crust kind of like a brownie

Chocolate Valentino

(Recipe from Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy)
I used a 6 inch pan and got two cakes out of this recipe.

• 16 oz/1 pound/454 grams of chocolate, roughly chopped
• 1/2 cup (1 stick) + 2 tablespoons 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. 10. Cool cake on a rack for 10 minutes then unmold.

As seen in my previous post, Brown Sugar Toffee Ice Cream with a Dulce de Leche Swirl is my current ice cream obsession so it was obvious that I’d choose to make that to go along with this cake. I decided to follow the theme of my ice cream and made brown sugar whip cream to cover the cake. I felt like a frosting would have been too much so a light whip cream was perfect. I also sprinkled toffee bits along the top and covered the sides of one of the cakes completely in toffee bits. I also added dark chocolate curls for decoration and tried to make white chocolate curls, but they turned more into flakes so I just scattered them on top too. 

This cake was good, but again not quite my tastes. I’m not a major chocolate lover and I also only like my cakes chilled, but that sort of hardened the cake too much. I think I might have also baked it too long (considering it’s hard to tell when it’s done) because my cake came out pretty dry. It was still good for a new treat to enjoy, but I think my cakes actually got thrown out in the end because no one wanted to eat them. Oh well!

I don’t know why I made this ice cream the first time. Maybe I always wanted to learn how to make dulce de leche or maybe I was so mesmerized by this recipe that I didn’t care that it would be more work. I guess it really doesn’t matter because all I know now is that this ice cream is the best I’ve ever had. I love is so much that I’ve made it multiple times and would be more than happy to eat nothing, but this ice cream for the rest of my life. Brown sugar toffee ice cream by itself sounds really good, but having the gooey, delicious dulce de leche swirled throughout this ice cold custard from heaven makes it almost orgasmic.

If you’ve been dying to buy that fancy shmancy ice cream maker, then this should be your reason to go for it. Just the thought of living without this ice cream seems almost pointless. You must make it! Okay, that’s a bit overdramatic, but seriously, you get the idea. This ice cream is pretty damn good. Make it already!

Brown Sugar Toffee Ice Cream with Dulce de Leche Swirl

(Recipe from Sticky, Gooey, Creamy, Chewy)

• 2 cups heavy cream
• 1 cup whole milk
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar
• 1 pinch sea salt
• 1 vanilla bean, split with the seeds scraped out
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• Toffee bits (as many as you want)
• 1 cup dulce de leche (recipe below)

1. Heat the milk, 1 cup heavy cream, salt, and both sugars in a saucepan. Add the vanilla bean seeds and pod to the mixture. Cover the saucepan and let steep for 30 minutes.
2. Pour the remaining heavy cream into a large bowl and set a mesh strainer on top. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk the egg yolks, then slowly pour in the warm milk mixture, whisking constantly. Pour the contents back into the pan and cook over low heat, stirring constantly with a heat-resistant spatula until the custard thickens. Strain the custard into the heavy cream. Put the vanilla bean back into the custard and chill thoroughly.
4. When chilled, remove the vanilla bean and freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturers instructions.
5. During the last few minutes add the toffee bits to the ice cream so that they are evenly distributed.
6. Whisk the dulce de leche. When the ice cream is finished churning, pour it into a freezable container, alternating between scoops of ice cream and scoops of dulce de leche. Freeze to desire consistency.
   

I’m a total newbie when it comes to making dulce de leche. I’m sure there are plenty of other ways to make it, maybe even ones from scratch that taste better, but until I can find a store that sells it, then this one will work for me. It’s really simple and the only hard part is adding more water to the pot when it starts to get low. Also, there is a very helpful video here that you can watch.

Dulce de Leche

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk

1. Remove label from can. With a can opener or even a nail and hammer, poke a few holes into the top of the can so that it can’t explode.
2. Fill a saucepan with water and place can inside. You’ll want enough water so that 2/3 of the can is submerged. Adding too much will cause the water to splash onto the top of the can and go inside your holes.
3. Boil the water for 3-5 hours depending on the thickness desired. (I usually cook mine for 4 hours and it ends up pretty thick). Be sure to refill the water every now and then as well.
4. Once you think it’s ready, remove the can from the water and carefully open it up. Pour all of the contents into a bowl and whisk to get the clumps out. Enjoy!

Note: When you open up the can do not be alarmed if the top of it still looks really liquidy. The bottom cooks the most so although you may have really thick dulce de leche at the bottom, you may still have a light color liquid at the top. I panicked and thought mine wasn’t done, but it will be.

You know, of all the things I’ve baked, of all the recipes I’ve ever tried, I do not believe I have ever actually attempted to make my own chocolate chip cookies. There have been, of course, the many occasions that I’d make the store bought, frozen dough kind or just use the cookie dough that my mom made for us to eat, but I can’t recall ever actually making my own cookies. I suppose it’s because I always thought that chocolate chip cookies were too generic. How unoriginal and boring of me to make chocolate chip cookies, right? Everyone and their dog makes chocolate chip cookies so why should I? Well I obviously had no idea just how great Alton Brown’s recipe for “The Chewy” was because if I had I for sure would have made these a long time ago! I don’t know why it took me so long to jump onto “The Chewy” bandwagon given the recent significant increase in chocolate chip cookie posts thanks to Joy’s experiment and the NY Times’ article. I’m so glad I finally made these too because they are FANTASTIC!

Now of course, knowing me and my baking addiction, I couldn’t possibly just stop with cookies. I had to make something else, something to add to my chocolate chip cookie theme. That’s when it hit me! Why not try my own version of the chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes? They’d been on the top of my ‘Future Things to Bake’ list for ages so this was the perfect opportunity to finally commit to baking them. I already had the cookie dough so all I needed was to find all of the extra components that I would need in order to make things happen.

My first thought was to make brown sugar cupcakes because the dough of chocolate chip cookies uses mainly brown sugar vs. white, granulated sugar. Not only did brown sugar cupcakes sound enticing, but these cupcakes would also remain very moist for a while due to the molasses in the brown sugar trying to draw in moisture. This is baking science 101, kids, and very handy at that!

Now what was next to figure out? Oh, yes! What kind of frosting would I use? Well, I had seen on sites such as How To Eat A Cupcake that they actually combined cookie dough into a vanilla flavored frosting. How ingenious was that! As Jamieanne from The Cupcake Review had noted, the frosting seemed very similar to that of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream and was a perfect way to compliment the brown sugar cupcakes. Of course, fearing for disease from raw egg in cookie dough that would be sitting out on cupcakes, like any right minded person should, I went and made an extra cookie dough that contained no eggs at all. No eggs, then no worries! All that was left was to bake mini versions of “The Chewy” to place on top of every cupcake in order to give them that last perfect touch.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Alton Brown’s “The Chewy”

(Recipe from Alton Brown)

• 2 sticks unsalted butter
• 2-1/4 cups bread flour
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1-1/4 cups brown sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Note: You can actually watch Alton Brown’s chocolate chip cookie episode on youtube to see how a few changes to one recipe can produce either a thin, crispy, or chewy cookie: Part 1 | Part 2

**The dough placed in the cupcakes MUST be frozen in order to produce that nice gooey cookie dough center. You DO NOT want the dough to actually bake into a cookie.  Also remember to save some of the dough for your mini chocolate chip cookies to be used as decoration at the end!**

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.
   
2. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat. Sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda and set aside.
   
3. Pour the melted butter in the mixer’s work bowl. Add the sugar and brown sugar. Cream the butter and sugars on medium speed. Add the egg, yolk, 2 tablespoons milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined. Slowly incorporate the flour mixture until thoroughly combined. Stir in the chocolate chips.

For the dough center: Place dough in the freezer until it is firm enough to be rolled up into nice little balls. Take dough out, roll them into whatever size you desire (mine were probably as large as How To Eat A Cupcake’s) and then place back into freezer until completely frozen (I believe I did this step the night before when I made the dough).

For cookies: Chill the dough, then scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets, 6 cookies per sheet. Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown, checking the cookies after 5 minutes. Rotate the baking sheet for even browning. Cool completely and store in an airtight container. (For the mini cookies, I literally rolled up unbelievably tiny balls of cookie dough and then watched them like a hawk while baking. I cannot recall how long they took, but it shouldn’t have been too long.)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

Brown Sugar Cupcakes

(Recipe from Cupcake Bakeshop. Makes about 12 cupcakes)

• 3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 2 large eggs, room temperature
• 1-1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Beat butter on high until soft, about 30 seconds.
3. Add sugar. Beat on medium-high until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add eggs one at a time, beat for 30 seconds after each.
5. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a bowl.
6. Measure out milk and vanilla together.
7. Add about a fourth of the flour to the butter/sugar mixture and beat to combine.
8. Add about one third the milk/vanilla mixture and beat until combined.
9. Repeat above, alternating flour and milk and ending with the flour mixture.
10. Place previously prepared frozen cookie dough ball (mine were fairly big) into cup liners, then fill about half to three-quarters full of cupcake batter.
11. Bake for 20-22 minutes until golden and the cake springs back when lightly touched. (Testing by using a toothpick would be insufficient because of the gooey cookie dough in the center).

Cookie Dough Frosting

(Recipe from The Cupcake Review. Makes enough to frost 12 cupcakes.)

• 1-3/4 cups confectioners sugar
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, chilled
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon milk
• Eggless cookie dough (recipe below)

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine 1-1/4 cups confectioners’ sugar, unsalted butter, salt, and vanilla, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as necessary.
2. Add milk and continue mixing until well combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl with a spatula, as necessary. With the mixer running, slowly add remaining 1/2 cup confectioners sugar, mix until well combined.
3. At this point you can mix in the eggless cookie dough. Mix in enough cookie dough to suit your taste. Any cookie dough leftover you can gladly eat! There are no eggs in it so it is safe. Yum!

Eggless Cookie Dough

(Recipe from How To Eat A Cupcake)

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/4 cup brown sugar, plus 2 tablespoons
• 2 teaspoons water
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/3 cup mini chocolate chips (optional)

1. Cream the butter and brown sugar in a small bowl. Add water and vanilla and mix well. Add flour and salt and stir to combine. Stir in mini chocolate chips (optional).
   
2. Store in refrigerator until ready to use.
   

Complete Assembly

This is just a little summary of what you should have done:

1. Make cookie dough balls and place them in the freezer until ready to be used.
   
2. Insert a ball of cookie dough into each cupcake liner before baking.
   
3. Mix vanilla buttercream frosting with eggless cookie dough to create cookie dough frosting.
   
4. Allow cupcakes to cool, then pipe on cookie dough frosting.
   
5. Decorate by sprinkling on mini chocolate chips and topping with a mini chocolate chip cookie.
   

Viola! Cupcakes that not only taste like cookie dough, but also have the look of a cookie! These cupcakes can store for multiple days and will remain moist due to the brown sugar, but I’d still suggest eating them as soon as possible. Then again, who couldn’t resist gobbling these blessings up as soon as they can? They’re much too good to just stare at it! Definitely make these for your friends and loved ones and they will LOVE YOU forever!