The Lovely Wife deserves a lovely cake...

The Lovely Wife celebrated her 30-something birthday on Monday, 10th August. I still haven't figured out what it is about women and their ages. I mean, I have no issue announcing to all and sundry that I am 42 - although my birthday is in November and that means I am still 41 but for all intents and purposes, I am 42. With women, and here I apologise to all the women in the world that are NOT 'afraid' of their ages, they are always hiding their ages with early 30's, mid 40s, late 20's or something or other. I just dont understand it and I guess I never will...but I digress as usual.

For The Lovely Wife, who is not only lovely but also wondeful - not just for putting up with me but simply because she is - this cake was specially made for her birthday. Although The Lovely Wife loves chocolate, I wanted to make something light and fruity that would tickle her taste buds more than chocolate would. To put it simply, I wanted to make her something that she would really like and so after thinking hard for a few weeks, I came up with this - Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream Cake!


The Lovely Wife had hinted at an Ice Cream cake but I had just stared at her rather grumpily. How dare she read my mind and figure out what I was trying to do for her. I had already decided I was going to use Dory Greenspans Perfect Party Cake for the base and I surfed around for a Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream recipe. I found one that I liked on Joy of Baking by Stephanie Jaworski and I based my recipe on that.

For the ice cream, I used my kenwood ice cream maker that produced a lovely thick, creamy ice cream. I made some mini cakes with the leftovers that The Lovely Wife sampled on Sunday as she didn't want to cut her cake before her actual birthday!


For the actual Birthday Cake, I grated some chocolate over the top of the cake for garnishing/decoration.




After spending more than 24 hours in the freezer, the cake was really frozen solid and I had to let it thaw a bit before we attempted to cut it. Even with the thawing, the cake was a little hard to cut but nothing that a firm hand and a sharp serrated knife coulnd't overcome!



To say that she loved the cake would be a little bit of an understatement! I was rather surprised with how well it turned out too although the strawberry chunks I added in at the churning stage seemed to be a little frozen and icy. Still, there was the nice subtle taste of cream cheese that went really nicely with the strawberry ice cream. My little princess loved the cake too although my son was a little disappointed. He wasn't too keen on the strawberry ice cream although he did like the cake. He commented that he would have preferred something with chocolate in it but I told him the cake was for Mummy and not for him!

All in all a very succesful birthday cake and what really matters is that The Lovely Wife really, really enjoyed it! Happy Birthday!

Strawberry Cheesecake Icecream Cake

1 recipe Perfect Party Cake
1 recipe Strawberry Cheesecake Icecream

Bake the cakes and set aside. Place one layer into a springform pan and cover with half the ice cream. Place another layer over the ice cream and cover with remaining ice cream. Freeze overnight. Allow to thaw about 10 mins before serving.

Perfect Party Cake
Courtesy of Dorie Greenspan’s Baking from My Home to Yours (page 250).
For the Cake

2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 ¼ cups whole milk
4 large egg whites
1 ½ cups sugar
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
4 ounces butter, at room temperature
½ teaspoon pure lemon extract

Centre a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9 x 2 inch round cake pans and line the bottom of each pan with a round of buttered parchment or wax paper. Put the pans on a baking sheet.

To Make the Cake
Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt.
Whisk together the milk and egg whites in a medium bowl.
Put the sugar and lemon zest in a mixer bowl or another large bowl and rub them together with your fingers until the sugar is moist and fragrant.
Add the butter and working with the paddle or whisk attachment, or with a hand mixer, beat at medium speed for a full 3 minutes, until the butter and sugar are very light.
Beat in the extract, then add one third of the flour mixture, still beating on medium speed.
Beat in half of the milk-egg mixture, then beat in half of the remaining dry ingredients until incorporated.
Add the rest of the milk and eggs beating until the batter is homogeneous, then add the last of the dry ingredients.
Finally, give the batter a good 2- minute beating to ensure that it is thoroughly mixed and well aerated.
Divide the batter between the two pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.
Bake for 30-35 minutes, or until the cakes are well risen and springy to the touch – a thin knife inserted into the centers should come out clean
Transfer the cakes to cooling racks and cool for about 5 minutes, then run a knife around the sides of the cakes, unfold them and peel off the paper liners.
Invert and cool to room temperature, right side up (the cooled cake layers can be wrapped airtight and stored at room temperature overnight or frozen for up to two months).

Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream
Based on http://www.joyofbaking.com/StrawberryCheesecakeIceCream.html by Stephanie Jaworski. I added an egg yolk and used fresh strawberries for the puree rather than sauce.
Recipe:
2 cups (500 ml) cream
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
125 grams cream cheese, room temperature
4 egg yolks
2/3 cup granulated white sugar
250g fresh strawberries - processed into puree
250g fresh strawberries, chopped coarsely in food processor

In a small saucepan, over medium-high heat, bring the cream and vanilla extract to the scalding point (the milk begins to foam up). Remove from heat
Meanwhile in a stainless steel bowl beat the cream cheese, egg yolks and sugar until light and fluffy (about two minutes). Gradually pour a little of the cream into the whipped egg yolk mixture to temper it, making sure you keep whisking constantly so the eggs dont curdle. Pour the tempered mixture back into the saucepan, whisking constantly. Return pan to the heat to and stirring constantly with a whisk cook until the custard becomes thick.
Immediately remove the custard from the heat and continue to stir the custard for a few minutes so it does not overcook. At this point stir in the vanilla extract, if using, and the strawberry puree. Cover and let cool to room temperature and then refrigerate the custard until it is completely cold (several hours but preferably overnight).
Transfer the cold custard to the chilled container of your ice cream machine and process according to the manufacturer's instructions. Once made, stir in the cut up fresh strawberries and transfer the ice cream to a chilled container and store in the freezer.

Chocolate Valentino - Co-hosting the DB Challenge

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.

What’s that? Did it say that I was co-hosting! Yes, Indeed! Cant you tell how excited I am!!! Now please sit back and watch the opening credits:

Location: A house somewhere in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia sometime in September 2008.

Camera focuses on a bedroom door. Pan back to reveal the door opening. An unshaven (but terribly good looking!) man walks out, rubbing his eyes. He makes his way to the bookshelf and moves a cookbook. A panel opens up revealing a small DVD player. Camera focuses on the screen and then shows the reflection of the (extremely good looking) man’s face as a voice over says….

Good morning, Mr. Navaratnam. My name is Wendy. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, involves co-hosting the February Daring Bakers challenge with me. You and I need to select a recipe, any recipe, but it should include Chocolate and Ice-Cream. That’s what I think anyway. You have forty-eight hours to help me choose and decide on a recipe. Once we have decided on the recipes, you will need to test it out and then compare notes with me. We will then have to inform Director Ivonne and Commissioner Lis, the founders of the DBs on our choice of recipe. As always, should you mess up the recipe, be caught or be killed, we will all disavow any knowledge of your actions – or even your existence.

And Mr. Navaratnam, the next time you come out of your room, please be good enough to wear a shirt. This message will self-destruct in five seconds.

Camera pans back. Man covers his face as the DVD screen blows up.

And that in a nutshell is how I came to co-host this February Challenge of the Daring Bakers – with a little bit of literary and artistic licence of course!


In all seriousness, it was way back in September 2008 that I got an email from Wendy asking me if I would like to co-host the February Daring Baker’s Challenge with her. I was really thrilled that Wendy had asked me and without any hesitation, I said yes! Can you believe that we actually started planning all this way back in September?

Both of us knew we wanted to do something with chocolate. After tossing up various ideas, we both decided on a Flourless Chocolate Cake paired with Ice Cream. Wendy liked the idea of using a recipe from someone in this part of the world and that’s when we decided we would use the recipe from Chef Wan. For all Malaysian’s and those who are fortunate enough to get to watch the Asian Food Channel, I am sure you have heard of Chef Wan from Malaysia who claims to be “Asia’s most flamboyant food ambassador”. For those of you that have never heard of him, trust me when I say he is an extremely entertaining person to watch and his recipes are firm favourites in this part of the world and especially in my household!

February’s challenge is a Chocolate Valentino, inspired by Chef Wan’s Recipe from his book Sweet Treats.

The thing that I really liked about this recipe was that it was very straightforward but gave lots of room for interpretation. We decided that we would give the Daring Baker’s lots of room for variation by not limiting them to the chocolate they would use. We also decided to let them pair it with any kind of ice-cream or whipped cream or any topping they so desired actually! We provided two ice cream recipes too.


So this is my take on this months Challenge.

I felt the cake wasn’t really all that difficult to do. I think the trick was in getting the egg whites to beat up nice and stiff and then to not let them collapse too much while folding into the chocolate mixture.

I made the cake in a Heart Shaped pan just as a Valentino is supposed to be. I also made a few smaller cakes in ramekins just to keep the Lovely Wife and the Kids happy. They were so eager to have a taste of the cake before it was served later that night for a few friends. I also did that so that I could test how baking individual cakes would turn out. You see, hosting a challenge means you need to test these things out!

Both the heart cake and the mini cakes turned out superb! The texture of the cake was very dense and rather fudgy.





Next of course came the ice cream. I DO have an Ice Cream maker but I decided NOT to use the ice cream maker for two reasons. First, I wanted to simulate how people without ice cream machines would handle this and secondly, my ice cream maker requires overnight freezing prior to use and of course I didn’t do that!!

I think the hardest part in making a custard based ice cream is in getting the custard just right.




After making the custard, I had to let it cool. I decided to take some fancy pictures using the recipe book as a prop!



The next hardest thing is making ice cream without a machine. For this, I had to whip cream till it was nice and thick and then fold it into the custard mixture.

Doesn't that look all creamy and delicious?

Then it was time to pour the cream into containers and freeze them.


I took the freezing ice cream out of the freezer a number of times and whipped it lightly. This is important and also can be a little tricky as if you don’t beat the mixture often enough, it will form lots of ice crystals and then the ice cream will be really hard and icy.

As I mentioned earlier, the kids couldn't wait to eat the cake and so I served one of the ramekins to them - complete with ice cream and a fresh cherry!



You can see that my official tasters really enjoyed this cake with ice cream!




Later that night, I served the cake at a dinner party and the guests all loved it. The vanilla ice cream went really well with the dark chocolate and the flavours were really delightful. One of our friends said it was the best chocolate cake she had ever eaten! This recipe is definitely one to be made many, many times. The only trouble is that with the amount of chocolate in it, this will be an expensive cake to make. I would also advice anyone who makes this to use only the Best Quality Chocolate - and use eating chocolate and not baking chocolate!



Although I tested the cake and ice cream recipes, Wendy went a step further and tested the cake 4 times and also provided a more detailed version of the recipe based on her experience. It’s a good thing she did because that alleviated a lot of the questions that would definitely have arisen had we only provided the recipe as is. Here, I provide for you the original unedited recipe exactly as it is in Chef Wan’s Sweet Treats. I also provide the Ice Cream recipe just as it is in the book - just so you can see how much more of a challenge it could have been!!

I really hope all of you Daring Bakers enjoyed this challenge. I must say it was a load of fun choosing and testing this recipe as Co-Host. It was also a lot of fun answering questions on the Forum and I'm sorry if I wasn't able to answer questions to any ones satisfaction. Finally, a big hug and another word of thanks to Wendy for asking me to co-host with her on this challenge!!

Here are the unabridged, unadulterated recipes.


Chocolate Valentino by Chef Wan from his book, Sweet Treats
453 grams of semisweet chocolate, roughly chopped
140 grams butter
5 eggs separated

Method

Melt chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a pan of simmering water. Stir until smooth. Cool
Grease a 22cm spring form pan. Beat egg yolks and stir into cooled chocolate
Beat egg whites until stiff peaks form. Gently fold on quarter of the egg whites into the chocolate mixture. Fold in remaining egg whites
Pour batter into a pan and bake for 25 minutes at 190C/375F or till done. Cool.

Chefs note: The Valentino is a heart-shaped version of this cake. Bake a Valentino in a heart-shaped pan. This is a very dense chocolate cake.



Classic Vanilla Ice Cream
Recipe comes from the Ice Cream Book by Joanna Farrow and Sara Lewis

Ingredients
1 Vanilla Pod
300ml / ½ pint / 1 ¼ cups Semi Skimmed Milk
4 large egg yolks
75g / 3oz / 6 tbsp caster sugar
5ml / 1 tsp corn flour
300ml / ½ pint / 1 ¼ cups Double Cream

1. Using a small knife slit the vanilla pod lengthways. Pour the milk into a heavy based saucepan, add the vanilla pod and bring to the boil. Remove from heat and leave for 15 minutes to allow the flavours to infuse
Lift the vanilla pod up. Holding it over the pan, scrape the black seeds out of the pod with a small knife so that they fall back into the milk. SET the vanilla pod aside and bring the milk back to the boil.
2. Whisk the egg yolks, sugar and corn-flour in a bowl until the mixture is thick and foamy.
3. Gradually pour in the hot milk, whisking constantly. Return the mixture to the pan and cook over a gentle hear, stirring all the time
4. When the custard thickens and is smooth, pour it back into the bowl. Cool it then chill.
5. By Hand: Whip the cream until it has thickened but still falls from a spoon. Fold it into the custard and pour into a plastic tub or similar freeze-proof container. Freeze for 6 hours or until firm enough to scoop, beating it twice

By Using and Ice Cream Maker: Stir the cream into the custard and churn the mixture until thick (follow instructions on your ice cream maker)