Daring Bakers Challenge 3: Chocolate and Stawberries.

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.
Flourless chocolate cake and I are not unfamiliar. I've baked my fair share of flourless cakes because the fudgey-ness is amazing and it's easy to make dairy free. The recipe given for this challenge did include dairy both in the cake and with the accompanying ice cream. I suppose I could have chosen to substitute soy but I didn't, butter and heavy cream were abundant. The only change I made to the given recipe was to add a bit of vanilla and almond extract.
Admittedly I almost didn't complete this challenge. February, ironically, has been quite a long month. I was feeling tired, overwhelmed and overworked. My main goal of the month was to get enough sleep each night to function the next day. Well, in the mist of my pity party I remembered that cooking and baking are not chores for me, I genuinely enjoy creating in the kitchen. So I dragged my lazy ass to the store for fresh, ingredients and thankfully for my sanity's sake was able to spend a wonderful relaxing couple of hours in the kitchen.
The other unfortunate side of this whole venture is that my decision to make yet another dairy-licious dessert means I was unable to taste my own creation. I'll leave the taste verdict t the boyfriend. How can chocolate and strawberries taste anything but fantastic.


For the strawberry ice cream, I just used my ice cream maker's recipe for a custard vanilla ice cream and added berries to the custard.
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
vanilla bean split
2 large eggs
3 large egg yolks
3/4 cup sugar

Combine milk and cream in a saucepan, Using a sharp knife split the vanilla bean and scrape out "seeds" add both to saucepan. Bring the mixture ti a slow boil over medium heat and then reduce to low simmering for about 30 minutes and stirring occasionally.
Meanwhile, combine the eggs and egg yolks in a medium bowl and mix with whisk or hand mixer until thick, smooth and pale yellow in color.
Turn off the heat from the cream mixture and remove vanilla bean pod. Take a small amount of the cream mixture and slowly add it too the eggs while mixing. Then slowly add the egg mixture to the saucepan with remaining cream. Heat on low and stir continuously until mixture thickens and coats the back of the spoon.
* add strawberries and transfer the mixture to a bowl, cover the custard directly with plastic wrap and place in refrigerator until thoroughly chilled. Finish ice cream according to ice cream machine directions.