topic Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska??? in Kitchen

Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

ECBG — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 00:55:03 GMT

I did at 26 and loved it!

The nuts and hot fudge sauce are missing!

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

Sooner — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 00:59:32 GMT

@ECBG Yes, but the most complicated thing I ever made was hand made puff pastry with some kind of pastry creme fillings in the layers. I don't remember the specifics of the filling, but it seems like the pastry was a 2-day deal of turning and layers of butter and rolling and turning.

If you have a good freezer, baked Alaska is fun and people love it. If you don't have a good freezer do not even think about it and don't ask me how I know that!

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

IamDoodles — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 01:13:09 GMT

@Sooner wrote:
@ECBG Yes, but the most complicated thing I ever made was hand made puff pastry with some kind of pastry creme fillings in the layers. I don't remember the specifics of the filling, but it seems like the pastry was a 2-day deal of turning and layers of butter and rolling and turning.

If you have a good freezer, baked Alaska is fun and people love it. If you don't have a good freezer do not even think about it and don't ask me how I know that!

I made puff pastry once and I so agree with you. The most difficult thing ever. It was delicious, but I would never attempt it again. The butter kept softening and oozing out and had to be refrigerated and rolled again. Layer after layer. Takes several days. I just buy Pepperidge farms puff pastry now and it's so simple.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

IamDoodles — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 01:14:09 GMT

Oh, I never made baked Alaska. Hate ice cream.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

AuntG — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 01:32:50 GMT

No, but I drooled over the picture of one in a Better Crocker cookbook my great aunt had. Seems to me the book came out in the early 1950's. I still page through it and even make a few things.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

PA Mom-mom — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 01:34:04 GMT

@ECBG I made it in 8th grade Home Ec. as a group project. It must have been a simplified version, because I don't remember it being.too complicated. It was cake, covered with ice cream and then meringue, followed by a short time in the oven. I can't remember how we made the shape of the cake, but I remember covering it with the ice cream, etc.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

QVCkitty1 — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 01:57:09 GMT

Yes, after I had it in a restaurant in the 80's , I made it at home. It was good, but I never made it again. I remember making a brownie bottom and then lining a metal bowl with plastic wrap and filling with ice cream. After everything was frozen I unmolded the ice cream bowl on the round brownie bottom and covered with meringue.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

ECBG — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 01:48:32 GMT

@PA Mom-mom wrote:
@ECBG I made it in 8th grade Home Ec. as a group project. It must have been a simplified version, because I don't remember it being.too complicated. It was cake, covered with ice cream and then meringue, followed by a short time in the oven. I can't remember how we made the shape of the cake, but I remember covering it with the ice cream, etc.

@PA Mom-mom

I taught Home Economics, now Family and Consumer Science .

Most often a pie crust is pierced and baked.

The crust is packed with ice cream, covered with meringue and browned. Then it is refrozen until served.

I then drizzle hot fudge and sprinkle with nuts.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

Sooner — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 02:11:31 GMT

@ECBG wrote:

@PA Mom-mom wrote:
@ECBG I made it in 8th grade Home Ec. as a group project. It must have been a simplified version, because I don't remember it being.too complicated. It was cake, covered with ice cream and then meringue, followed by a short time in the oven. I can't remember how we made the shape of the cake, but I remember covering it with the ice cream, etc.
@PA Mom-mom

I taught Home Economics, now Family and Consumer Science .

Most often a pie crust is pierced and baked.
The crust is packed with ice cream, covered with meringue and browned. Then it is refrozen until served.

I then drizzle hot fudge and sprinkle with nuts.

@ECBG That's new to me. I have never seen baked Alaska with a pie crust. Very interesting.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

Enufstuff — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 02:23:05 GMT

@ECBG@Sooner

I never made Baked Alaska, but I always got it for dessert at a favorite restaurant years ago.

It had a pie crust shell filled with vanilla ice cream and topped with the meringue. It was served with strawberries in a sauce.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

PA Mom-mom — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 02:28:25 GMT

@ECBG The one we made definitely started with a cake. But, who knows where we got the recipe. There was a series of cookbooks in the library we often used. I think it was a Time-Life series.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

ECBG — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 02:33:00 GMT

@Sooner

It's an old desert, probably from the 40's and 50's.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

drizzellla — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 02:45:22 GMT

@PA Mom-mom wrote:
@ECBG I made it in 8th grade Home Ec. as a group project. It must have been a simplified version, because I don't remember it being.too complicated. It was cake, covered with ice cream and then meringue, followed by a short time in the oven. I can't remember how we made the shape of the cake, but I remember covering it with the ice cream, etc.

I can not believe that you made Baked Alaska in Home Ec.

We had to make an apron before we started to cook. It took us so long to sew the apron. That the ONLY thing we ever cooked in Home Ec. was toast and hot chocolate.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

Carmie — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 02:53:25 GMT

I made it once years ago. My husband said it would taste better without the meringue. I never made it again.

He is used to fancy pastries. His mother was born in Europe and baked things I would consider to be complicated...like strudel and apple or walnut pita. I make them using her recipes. But it takes me hours to make what she could throw together in minutes.

She never made a pie...I make them often.. easy as pie.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

paixmcdao — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 12:47:03 GMT

Baked Alaska, dessert of American origin that consists of ice cream layered between a slice of sponge cake and a covering of meringue, which is baked quickly at high heat until lightly browned.

Baked Alaska seems a physical improbability, given the tendency of ice cream to melt under heat. The layer of sponge cake at the bottom and the coating of meringue, made of whipped egg whites and sugar, insulate well-chilled ice cream, however, leading to a surprising blend of warm and cold that has proved popular for generations. To achieve the optimal balance of warm and cold, the dessert is baked in a very hot (500 °F [260 °C]) oven for only two or three minutes. Many chefs forgo the oven entirely, however, and brown the meringue with a butane culinary torch.

There is much disagreement over the inventor of baked Alaska, although almost all sources agree that the dessert was named to celebrate the acquisition by the United States of the former Russian territory of Alaska in March 1867. A similar dish, known in France as the omelette norvégienne, or “Norwegian omelette,” was credited to the American-born British physicist Benjamin Thompson, count von Rumford, a pioneer of cooking techniques and equipment. One theory attributes the dessert as it is known today to Antoine Alciatore, the chef de cuisine of the famed Antoine’s Restaurant in New Orleans, while a competing theory, better supported, ascribes it to Charles Ranhofer, the head chef at Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York, who called it “Alaska, Florida” to mark the combination of cold and heat. Ranhofer retained that title in a cookbook he published in 1893, and it was only with the publication in 1896 of Fannie Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook Book that the dessert became known as baked Alaska.

The ice cream flavours in a baked Alaska are subject to individual taste, although vanilla is the ice cream most often used in restaurants. Baked Alaska is a relatively easy dish for home cooks to make. It is often served with a fruit compote, berries, or cherries.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

Group 5 minus 1 — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 12:54:13 GMT

I didn't think the classic Baked Alaska was made w/a pie shell.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

Carmie — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 13:05:10 GMT

@drizzellla wrote:
@PA Mom-mom wrote:
@ECBG I made it in 8th grade Home Ec. as a group project. It must have been a simplified version, because I don't remember it being.too complicated. It was cake, covered with ice cream and then meringue, followed by a short time in the oven. I can't remember how we made the shape of the cake, but I remember covering it with the ice cream, etc.

I can not believe that you made Baked Alaska in Home Ec.

We had to make an apron before we started to cook. It took us so long to sew the apron. That the ONLY thing we ever cooked in Home Ec. was toast and hot chocolate.

My Home EC teacher could sew well. While we were working, she would be making custom slip covers for sofas. I learned a lot from her. But, Unfortunately, she couldn't cook.

The only thing we made in a whole years time, was baking powder biscuits and this awful potato soup. The soup was water, celery, onions, salt pepper and potatoes. That's it. I got in trouble for telling her that her recipe was gross and I could teach cooking better than she could.

She spent a lot of time teaching us how to set a table and how to choose dinnerware and glassware patterns that went together...

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

deepwaterdotter — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 13:37:21 GMT

@AuntG wrote:
No, but I drooled over the picture of one in a Better Crocker cookbook my great aunt had. Seems to me the book came out in the early 1950's. I still page through it and even make a few things.

I inherited that same cookbook when my mother passed. The closest i have come to making Baked Alaska is reading the recipe and admiring that same picture.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

PA Mom-mom — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 13:54:28 GMT

@drizzellla I attended a Mennonite school. Believe me, we had to come out of there being able to cook and sew. Mom also sent me to 4-H for cooking and sewing. I still like to cook, but I stopped sewing when work and family life just got too busy.

Re: Have You Ever Made Baked Alaska???

shoptilyadropagain — Mon, 03 Apr 2023 14:06:40 GMT

I have never made it as I'm not real big on desserts. Besides, ice cream is just OK and I don't care for meringue or piecrust (store bought or homemade).