Daring Bakers Challenge: Baked Alaska

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 Alasa or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

Hey there, faithful B More Sweet readers! Feeling a little MadMen-ish this month? Like you want to eat Lobster Thermidor, smoke Camels, and top it off with a nice Baked Alaska? This month's Daring Bakers challenge will let you at least fulfill that last part - the hankering for a very retro dessert. You all know the drill by now: each month I bake with a fantastic online baking group called Daring Bakers, and we post our results worldwide on our respective blogs on the same day. We are required by the rules of membership to post the recipes and instructions exactly as we received them from the month's moderator; so I don't have the freedom to change any of that, and none of the word usage or sentence structure is mine. The photos are mine all mine, taken as I was constructing this month's dessert creation, Baked Alaska.

Wherever I add editorial comments, you'll see them in purple italics, like this. The normal-faced black font recites the recipe and directions exactly as provided by the DBers.

This is a time-consuming recipe for a pretty old-fashioned, fusty dessert. This is cake plus ice cream plus meringue. The only way to tackle it realistically, especially if you are a working person, is to break down each element individually; you can make the cake easily in a couple of hours, without breaking a sweat after you brown the butter. (Note: this browned-butter cake is worthy of eating all on its lonesome. The browned-butter taste is fantastically decadent.) The ice cream isn't difficult but, as you know, making homemade ice cream is an evolutionary process that takes time at least overnight to achieve the desired consistency. Making the meringue is just plain fun, and really, what's more fun in a kitchen than a blow torch? 

If , by the end of making this Baked Alaska, you are frustrated as all get-out and sick of being in the kitchen, as I was, you can take our your frustrations on the dessert with a little mini blowtorch. FUN! So fasten your seat belts (if you can still fit into your seat belts after all these months of ridiculously elaborate desserts from the Daring Bakers, which I mean in a good way), and here goes this month's challenge:

Recipes:

Vanilla Ice Cream


(* Note: You can make any flavor of homemade ice cream that you'd prefer - I made chocolate!) 

1 cup (250ml) whole milk
a pinch of salt
3/4 cup (165g) sugar
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise OR 2 teaspoons (10ml) pure vanilla extract
2 cups (500ml) heavy (approx 35% butterfat) cream

5 large egg yolks 
1 teaspoon (5ml) pure vanilla extract

1. Heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a medium saucepan until the liquid steams. Scrape out the seeds of the vanilla bean with a paring knife and add to the milk, along with the bean pod. Cover, remove from heat, and let infuse for an hour. (If you do not have a vanilla bean, simply heat the milk, salt, and sugar in a medium saucepan until the liquid steams, then let cool to room temperature.)

2. Set up an ice bath by placing a 2-quart (2 litre) bowl inside a large bowl partially filled with water and ice. Put a strainer on top of the smaller bowl and pour in the cream.

3. In another bowl, lightly beat the egg yolks together. Reheat the milk in the medium saucepan until warmed, and then gradually pour 1⁄4 cup warmed milk into the yolks, constantly whisking to keep the eggs from scrambling. Once the yolks are warmed, scrape the yolk and milk mixture back into the saucepan of warmed milk and cook over low heat. Stir constantly and scrape the bottom with a spatula until the mixture thickens into a custard which thinly coats the back of the spatula.

4. Strain the custard into the heavy cream and stir the mixture until cooled. Add the vanilla extract (1 teaspoon [5ml] if you are using a vanilla bean; 3 teaspoons [15ml] if you are not using a vanilla bean) and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled, preferably overnight.

5. Remove the vanilla bean and freeze in an ice cream maker. If you don’t have an ice cream maker, you can make it without a machine. See instructions from David Lebovitz: http://www.davidlebovitz.com/archives/2007/07/making_ice_crea_1.html

Brown Butter Pound Cake

19 tablespoons (9.5 oz) (275g) unsalted (sweet) butter 
2 cups (200g) sifted cake flour (not self-rising; sift before measuring) 
1 teaspoon (5g) baking powder
 1/2 teaspoon (3g) salt
 1/2 cup (110g) packed light brown sugar
 1/3 (75g) cup granulated sugar
 4 large eggs
 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 325°F/160°C and put a rack in the center. Butter and flour a 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan.

2. Place the butter in a 10” (25cm) skillet over medium heat. Brown the butter until the milk solids are a dark chocolate brown and the butter smells nutty. (Don’t take your eyes off the butter in case it burns.) Pour into a shallow bowl and chill in the freezer until just congealed, 15-30 minutes.

3. Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, and salt.

4. Beat the brown butter, light brown sugar, and granulated sugar in an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in the eggs one at a time, mixing well, and then the vanilla extract.

5. Stir in the flour mixture at low speed until just combined.

6. Scrape the batter into the greased and floured 9”x9” (23cmx23cm) square pan. Smooth the top with a rubber spatula and rap the pan on the counter. Bake until golden brown on top and when a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 25 minutes.

7. Cool in the pan 10 minutes. Run a knife along the edge and invert right-side-up onto a cooling rack to cool completely.

Meringue (For the Baked Alaska)

8 large egg whites 
1⁄2 teaspoon (3g) cream of tartar
 1⁄2 teaspoon (3g) salt
 1 cup (220g) sugar

Beat the egg whites, cream of tartar, and salt on high speed in an electric mixer until soft peaks form. Beat in the sugar gradually in a slow stream until stiff peaks form.

Assembly Instructions – Baked Alaska

1. Line four 4” (10cm) diameter tea cups with plastic wrap, so that plastic wrap covers all the sides and hangs over the edge. Fill to the top with ice cream. Cover the top with the overhanging plastic wrap and freeze for several hours, or until solid.

2. Level the top of the brown butter pound cake with a serrated knife or with a cake leveler. Cut out four 4” (10cm) diameter circles from the cake. Discard the scraps or use for another purpose.

3. Make the meringue (see above.) 

4. Unwrap the ice cream “cups” and invert on top of a cake round. Trim any extra cake if necessary. (These really do not have to be perfect, because you'll be covering all sins with meringue. Just try to get close.)

5. Pipe the meringue over the ice cream and cake, or smooth it over with a spatula, so that none of the ice cream or cake is exposed. Freeze for one hour or up to a day.

6. Burn the tips of the meringue with a cooking blow torch. Or, bake the meringue-topped Baked Alaska on a rimmed baking sheet in a 500°F/260°C oven for 5 minutes until lightly golden. Serve immediately.

All in all, I found this dessert to be incredibly nerve-wracking to make. The individual components were not at all difficult, but the assembly is a giant race against the clock - especially in August, in Baltimore, when it's roughly 10 million degrees in the shade in my kitchen. The ice cream, because it's homemade without preservatives, starts to melt when you even think about using it, so any time it spends outside the freezer is a big melty hassle. My best advice is to get as cold as you can the  plates you will sit the desserts on, so that they won't start melting from the bottom as you work on them. Try to touch the ice cream as little as possible. After putting the ice cream on top of the cake, put it back in the freezer when you move to the next one; and after you pipe meringue on the first one, immediately put it back in the freezer, and so on. And once you blowtorch those desserts, get them on the table right away. I now know why the ladies and gents of the MadMen era drank martinis all night long - they spent too much time trying to make Baked Alaska!

Source: http://bmoresweet.blogspot.com/2010/08/daring-bakers-challenge-baked-alaska.html