Baked Alaska

Baked Alaska, at last...

That's how I look at it because, for some reason, Baked Alaska is one of those things I've always wanted to make!  I'm really not sure why - maybe it's just the presence of ice cream that I always want to eat but there's something special about a Baked Alaska, an element of surprise.  When I first got my little kitchen blow torch last Christmas, I knew I'd eventually make my way to this dessert.  It feels good to finally have a go at it!

I made these as our "back to school" cake(s) this year.  Celebrating the first day back to school is a great reason to make and eat cake!  I am very lucky - and grateful - that my husband was home to help me photograph these torched mounds of ice cream cake!  With hands sticky with meringue and thoughts of melting ice cream, it was a luxury to have a helper snap some pics for me.  He is such a good sport to go along with this hobby of mine.  I pay him back with dessert, and he seems happy with this arrangement. 

A Baked Alaska is basically an ice cream cake encased in a snowy, billowy mound of torched meringue.  It's fascinating to look at, fun to cut into, and delicious to eat!  It takes a few steps to make but you can do it ahead and try to keep it as simple as possible.  I'm giving my ice cream maker a well-deserved break and used store-bought ice cream.

I started by making a chocolate cake base, scaling down this recipe from Martha. I really love the idea of neapolitan flavors in a Baked Alaska but instead of trying to make layers in my small Alaskas, I went with mint chocolate chip ice cream and just one base layer of cake at the bottom (you could alternate layers of cake and ice cream if you want).  This chocolate cake recipe is perfect for ice cream cake - so moist and since it's made with oil, it doesn't harden like a rock in the freezer.

I used small glass prep bowls to make my mini Baked Alaskas and you could use anything from teacups to bowls or a cake mold.  Or make one large Baked Alaska instead.  Just spray the bowl with cooking spray and line it with plastic wrap, leaving plenty of overhang.  Then pack in a good-quality, creamy, dense ice cream before sealing it with the cake layer that will become the bottom.  It's easy to take the chocolate sponge cake you've baked and cut out the size you need by inverting the cup or bowl you're using for the mold and cutting out the rounds you need. This can (and should be) assembled ahead and kept in the freezer until show time - when you make the meringue, apply it liberally onto the frozen, molded cakes, and torch it!

I coated the cakes with a thick layer (insulation, really...) of Swiss meringue before giving it a quick, thorough pass with the kitchen blow torch.  You can actually bake the cakes in a very hot oven but I think the blow torch is very quick and effective here.  In an instant, you achieve beautiful-to-look-at as well as delicious peaks of toasted meringue.  

I'm happy I finally got to make my Baked Alaska.  It's most definitely a very special treat.

Payard's flourless chocolate cookies - 2 ways

On one of our recent excursions into NYC, we stopped by Payard Bakery for some requisite macarons and a few other sweet treats.  Incidentally, we tried one of their savory sandwiches and it was quite tasty.  Anyway...the visit got me looking up some of Francois Payard's recipes and it brought me to these flourless chocolate cookies that have been fairly widely touted.  I thought it would be fun to give them a try for myself.  I think this is a good time to highlight flourless treats with Passover coming up but these are some pretty special flourless cookies to try for no reason at all.

Payard's recipe is flourless chocolate-walnut cookies.  Some people commend them for being low-fat since there's actually no chocolate (just cocoa powder) in them and only egg whites are used to bind them.  What fat you do find in them is the good stuff, coming from the walnuts.  But you won't find me insinuating they're some sort of "health food" because there's plenty of sugar in the mix.  But the amazing thing about these cookies is their texture.  Somehow, they manage to be moist, fudgy, and chewy (yes, chocolaty too) without the actual chocolate, butter, or egg yolks.  They really do taste and look like brownies in cookie form!  The other thing about these cookies is they are very easy to make.  I mixed the batter in a large bowl, by hand, in a matter of minutes. 

When I made these, I wondered if my little guy would like them.  The little one loves a chocolate cookie or brownie but he still insists he doesn't like walnuts (or other chunks of nuts in his desserts - long story, but that's not really true).  So I offhandedly fed him a bite to test the waters and when he almost took my fingers off trying to inhale as big a mouthful as he could, I knew he was into them.  He quickly scarfed one down and requested more, even acknowledging they were good with the walnuts. 

These were so interesting that I decided to make another batch a few days later and play with the mix-in.  I threw the "no actual chocolate in this recipe" mantra out the window and added some mini chocolate chips and a little bit of cocoa nibs in place of the walnuts.  The result?  They were good but in a side by side comparison, we clearly preferred the original toasted walnut version more (not surprisingly, the pros know what they're doing).  The chocolate chips are tasty but made the cookies sweeter than I liked.  The cocoa nibs added a certain level of smokiness to the cookies without the sweetness so perhaps it may be worthwhile to try what Molly at Orangette did and make a walnut-cocoa nibs version.  But I think I'll stick with the original. 

Mocha meringues with cocoa nibs

In my quest to present lighter treats this January, I have another merginue recipe today.  These are mocha meringues, flavored with cocoa powder and a bit of espresso powder.  Instead of chocolate chips, which you could certainly use, I mixed in bits of roasted cocoa nibs.

I've been wanting to experiment with cocoa nibs for a while now.  They are essentially bits of roasted cacao bean, or "raw chocolate" where sugar and other flavorings have not yet been added.  The nibs are crunchy and have a rich chocolate and coffee aroma and flavor to them.  I recently got my hands on some Valhrona roasted cocoa nibs and I'm using them for the first time in these meringues.  I think the cocoa nibs compliment the mocha flavor and give an extra bit of crunch and flavor without adding a lot of extra fat and calories.  As an added bonus, they're also supposed to be quite good for you and very high in antioxidants.

The bit of cocoa and espresso powder really give these meringues quite a lot of flavor while the cocoa nibs add a richness to them.  They are crisp, almost hard on the outside, but nice and chewy on the inside.  I think the trick to making meringue is to really whip the egg whites enough so that you get true stiff peaks.  I don't think I've quite mastered this yet since my meringues spread more than I expected and I suspect I could've whipped those whites a bit further.  Meringues are certainly a low calorie option as far as cookies go since we're basically dealing with just egg whites and sugar, with flavorings (in this case, cocoa and espresso powder) added on.  Supposing you're not concerned about calorie count or fat grams, you could enjoy these meringues with some ice cream.  This bowl here was just for my little guy - honest.

I'm tempted to pretend I've been sitting here this January constantly eating things with wheat germ and only baking low-fat, low-cal treats like meringues but I won't lie.  Not only have I been enjoying my Christmas chocolates (slowly but surely), I've made a couple of chocolate desserts I'll be showing you soon.  Let's just say chocolate and butter will be making a reappearance in the near future.