Baked Alaska

Must wash dogs, water plants, clean up house, remove plants from outside before winter.  Hair is in desperate need of cut and color (why, hello gray hair, thanks for making an appearance 😲).  Have not worked out in a week and apparently that is all my body needs these days to completely give up.  Must wrap presents and get card for my son's birthday.    

Oh, never mind.  Let's just put it all off and bake.  Given my to-do list, I thought a 50's housewife sort of dessert would be appropriate.  Enter the Baked Alaska.  How did this fabulous concoction of cake, ice cream and meringue ever fall out of style?  

I am not a total mockery of a Mom...I mean, I did ask my child what kind of cake he would like for his birthday.  He said ice cream cake.  Just as I was about to groan and roll my eyes, I thought of the Baked Alaska that I have been wanting to make ever since I heard the cook say it in the movie, "Annie".  Yes, yes!  I will do it and make this child feel like for one day out of the year, his Mom is not a total failure.  

So, here we are.  This is a bit of a slog to make just because you make the cake, freeze, spread on the ice cream after partially melting the ice cream, freeze again.  The parts are easy, it's the waiting between freezes that gets annoying  The other little bit is that you really need to serve this thing right away.  I served myself a piece, ok, maybe two, put it back in the freezer and then tried to cut into it after it had been in the freezer for a few hours and it was like trying to cut through concrete.  Even when I left it out on the counter to soften, the ice cream softened and then the cake was still hard.  So, unfortunately, this is not a good one to save and have a few days later.  That said, you can make everything a day or so ahead except for the baking of the entire cake.  

One other little tip.  You can totally shortcut this recipe by skipping the baking of the cake and just buying a poundcake or some other pre-made cake, plopping the ice cream on top and just making the meringue part to go on top.  If you want to be an over-achiever, you can also do the long version and make the cake, ice cream and meringue.  As for me, because over-achiever is the last word I would ever use to describe myself, I bought the ice cream and made everything else.

Recipe adapted from "Baking Chez Moi" by Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients:

For the Cake:

4 large eggs

8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

15 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

1 cup of sugar divided

pinch of Kosher salt

For the filling:

2 pints of ice cream - I combined my son's two favorite flavors, chocolate and pistachio and it was delicious.  So, combine or not with whatever flavors make you happy.  Go nuts, it's your cake.

For the meringue:

4 large or 3 extra large egg whites

pinch of Kosher salt

3/4 cup superfine sugar

Method for the cake:

Pre-heat the oven to 325° F.  Spray a non-stick 9-inch pan with PAM cooking spray and cut out parchment paper to just cover the bottom of the pan.  Spray again with PAM.  You can also use butter instead of PAM but the PAM is just so much easier, imo.

Separate 3 of the eggs.  Put the three yolks and the whole egg in a medium bowl.  Put the 3 egg whites in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Whip the egg whites and pinch of salt with the whisk attachment of a stand mixer for about a minute.  Add in 1/4 cup of sugar and continue to whip the whites at high speed until the mixture forms shiny peaks.

Put the chopped chocolate and butter in a large heatproof bowl over simmering hot water on the stove.  Warm the chocolate and butter, stirring occasionally, until it is just melted.  Take the mixture off the heat and stir in cocoa powder until smooth.  Let it cool for a few minutes.

Whisk the egg yolks and whole egg with 1/3 cup of the sugar until the mixture pales and thickens slightly, a couple of minutes.  Add this mixture to the melted chocolate mixture and immediately whisk vigorously for 2-3 minutes until all fully incorporated.  (It's important to mix immediately or else it will turn into scrambled eggs with the heat of the melted chocolate.)

Fold the whipped egg whites into the chocolate mixture very carefully until all of the whites are incorporated into the chocolate.  The whites are what will give your cake lift, so fold carefully.  When it comes out of the oven,  it will fall into a bowl shape for the ice cream.

Scrape the entire mixture into the prepared pan and pop into the oven for 35 - 40 minutes.  A toothpick should come out clean but it's better to have this undercooked than overcooked.  Any mistakes on this one will be covered by the ice cream and meringue, so don't stress.

Take the cake out of the oven and let it rest for about 10 minutes.  Invert the cake on to a plate and let cool for about an hour.  Pop the cake into the freezer to get hard prior to moving on to the ice cream.

Filling:

Take the two pints of ice cream out of the freezer and let sit for about 20 minutes until easily malleable.  

Mix and mash the ice cream together.  I used a potato masher for this step.  

Take the cake out of the freezer and spread the ice cream on top.  Pop back into the freezer, uncovered, for a few hours for it all to freeze up again.

Meringue and finishing the cake:

Preheat the oven to 500°F.

Set the bowl of your stand mixer over a large pot of simmering water.  It's ok if the bottom of the bowl dips into the water.  Pour the egg whites, salt and sugar into the bowl and whisk constantly for about 5 minutes.  My arm wore out on this one.  When it reached a white color and was hot, I sent it over to the stand mixer to finish the job.  

Mix in the stand mixer with the whisk attachment until it reaches a marshmallow consistency, about 10 minutes.  You want this:

Remove the cake from the freezer, put it on the lined baking sheet and spread the meringue all over with a little more on the sides.  

Bake the cake for 3 to 5 minutes, or until the cake has a color you like.  I had mine in the oven for 5 minutes and it was not tan/brown enough for my taste.  So, I took out the blow torch and gave it some extra color out of the oven.  

Ever so carefully with an enormous spatula, transfer to a serving platter and serve immediately.