The Daring Bakers Bake Alaska

No, this is not a post about global warming, but it probably should be. Have you always wanted to make Baked Alaska but thought it was too difficult? Too many components? Too much like something your parents' generation would have served at a dinner party? It is, but it's pretty tasty anyway.

When I was a teenager, I really wanted to make Baked Alaska and had an ice cream maker and my dad's  torch, but I never got around to it. Then, who knows what happened, but I kind of forgot about it. Now, all these years later and I got the perfect opportunity to make one. This month's challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. She's 18 now and takes amazing photos of her culinary creations.

The brown butter pound cake had the most delicious batter, but the baked cake didn't really work here. It was dense and became dry and unpleasantly hard in the freezer. If I do this again I'll make a genoise, as I think the texture will be better frozen. The other components were great, though--I made a honey-peach ice cream to fill this random act of piping, and covered it in Italian meringue, before getting a bit torch-happy. Well-browned Italian meringue tastes just like roasted marshmallows, doesn't it? More on that in my next post...

Blog-checking lines: The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

Link to full challenge PDF here.

Honey-Peach Ice Cream (from Dorie Greenspan’s Baking: From my Home to Yours)

4 large ripe peaches
1/4 cup honey
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla

1 tablespoon rum

1. Chop the peaches into 1/2 inch chunks and place them in a small saucepan. Add the honey and bring to a boil, lower the heat, cover the pan and cook until the peaches are soft (about 10 minutes). Scrape the mixture into a blender or food processor and puree. Cover and chill.

2. Bring the milk and cream to a boil in a saucepan. Meanwhile, whisk the yolks and sugar together until blended in a heatproof bowl. Drizzle in a bit of the hot milk mixture to temper the eggs, whisking. Slowly add the rest of the milk mixture. Pour the milk/egg mixture back into the saucepan and heat ove medium-low, stirring until it thickens and coats the back of a spoon. Remove from the heat, pour into a heatproof bowl, and chill. When all components are thoroughly chilled, stir in the vanilla, rum and peach puree.

3. Scrape into the bowl of an ice cream maker and churn according to the manufacturer’s instructions.  When the ice cream is ready, pack into a container and freeze for at least 2 hours until it is firm enough to scoop.