Daring Bakers March Challenge : Part 5 - Pasta Disasta

So here are the less successful attempts at pasta making, using spinach in one (the original challenge pasta), and one with carrot/butternut squash.

It seems a little pointless to offer up the recipes, since they didn't work. However, they were made in much the same way as regular pasta, but with some flour and some egg substituted as vegetable.

It all started out so promising...



But in the end I was left with a sticky green mess, and a sticky orange mess, and no amount of flour would fix my problem, and so they got binned after 6 hours of trying too hard.

Disaster Zone : February Daring Bakers Part 2 : Homemade Ice Cream

So for the second part of this month's challenge, I decided to go with a recipe for Vanilla ice cream by Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, as found here : http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/database/realvanillaicecream_14294.shtml

Unfortunately, this was an unmitigated disaster for the most part. The recipe called for a light sugar syrup to be whisked slowly into beaten egg yolks... However, either I cooked the syrup too high, or too long, left it to cool too long or not long enough... and anyway, the result was this :


The sugar syrup clumped, and gathered around the whisk, leaving me with runny yolks and sticky syrup, not the mousse like substance I was aiming for.

So, for today, I give up on this ice cream, and go in search of another. Tomorrow, I will try again.

Chocoholic's Dream - February Daring Bakers Challenge Part 1 : The Cake

As usual, lets' get the formalities out of the way, and then on to the recipe :

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.

The Challenge :

-Use the following cake recipe

-Serve with homemade ice cream : You can choose any flavour you want and any recipe although we provided two vanilla ice cream recipes. But we are giving you a little freedom here and will allow whipped cream as a topping as well or of course non-dairy whip. Be as creative as you want with your topping. Any fruit puree or sauce would be lovely with this cake.

How I found it :

I quite enjoyed the first part of this recipe, it was straight forward and the cake itself came out tasting *exactly* like the Cadbury milk chocolate that I used. I think next time I make it, I'll add a teaspoon on instant coffee, to give a little kick up of flavour.

Ingredients :


454g milk chocolate (or any chocolate you like)
146g unsalted butter
5 eggs, seperated

Method :


01. Seperate the eggs.

02. Chop the chocolate and butter into small pieces and place in a bowl.



03. Melt the chocolate and butter in a bowl over a pot of simmering water, stirring continuously until smooth.


04. While the chocolate and butter mix is cooling, beat the egg whites until stiff peaks are formed.


05. Beat the egg yolks.


06. Pour the egg yolks in the cooled chocolate mix, and stir in.


07. Add one third of the whites and fold in.



08. Fold in the remaining eggs whites, taking care not to beat out any of the air, until the mixture is constant.


09. Pour batter into a greased and lined tin, and bake at 190 degrees Celcius for 25 minutes.


10. Remove from oven and cool for 10 minutes before unmolding.


11. Cut into desired shapes, and serve with some ice cream!