Monday, December 14, 2009

The Baked Alaska story





It was Rhiannon’s birthday coming up and I wanted to do something
special. I researched some cake recipes and decided on something I had never made before:
Baked Alaska.

As I read I found several different recipes for this classic,
but all of them included ice-cream,


So, for a week before the party, I was busy with my ice-cream maker-the kind where your rotate a cylinder inside a bucket with and ice-sakt mixture. I came up with some strawberry, some chocolate and some apricot from earlier this year.

I baked a cake as well. A gorgeously soft.golden sponge cake from scratch. It had lots of eggs and sugar!!

So the day of the event I put the thing together. I melted the ice-cream slightly and formed it into rounds which then refroze. Later I put the cake together and sandwiched the ice cream between the sponge layers. I also added some strawberry puree and whipped cream, flavoured with bourbon, in the layers.

A layer of chopped crystallised pineapple that I had made earlier was the topping. I then put the whole thing back in the freezer.

Guests started arriving and the party began to hum. First I served some drinks, then I was entertaining. At the busiest time I started the meringue. It took a dozen egg-whites. I whipped up a storm and there was a lot of snowy looking egg-whites in the bowl. It finally had the right consistency.

By this time we were getting Rhiannnon out of the room in anticipation.

I took out the frozen cake from the fridge and started covering it with meringue. It took a lot of it to cover the cake but finally I was done.

It looked like this:



Finally I was ready and the cake went in the oven. I had really no idea how long it would take. It took less time than I thought.

I opened the oven door after 8 minutes and took a peep. The cake was already faintly browned all over. I gave it a minute more and then took it out. A faint dribble of molten ice-cream was flowing from the cake.

I held it a minute in front of me. It was an amazing creation!
Then I very carefully carried it over to the main table where I set it down. I was grateful it was over! That baking had been a challenge. But now I had Sabrina and Kaeti to help me decorate.

There were quite a few decorative features. Some baby concord grapes that I had coated in powdered sugar gave a festive air. Then the candles and some colored sugar on top. And the name Rina of course in a pink gel.

It got quite a reception that cake and people asked me all sorts of questions. Definitely my most ambitious cake project yet.