Easy Baked Alaska (Apartment Oven Toasting Method)
Baked Alaska is my favorite celebrations cake hands down and you can make your own cake, meringue and ice cream. I heard about the dessert working in catering and waited until I was ready to have the best cake slice of my life at DC's DBGB restaurant in 2015.
Equipment
- freezer safe bowl to fit the ice cream shape
- cake stand or plate
- aluminum foil
Ingredients
- meringue shell
- ice cream of choice
- cake of choice
Instructions
- You can make or prepare ice cream and meringue a day ahead or a few hours in advance.
- Bake cake and cut around the base of the bowl (the cake will be the Baked Alaska base). Let cake cool or set aside covered in fridge until you're ready to use.
- Assemble the meringue: Line your freezer bowl with plastic wrap. Add a meringue layer as thick as you want (up to 1" recommended). Cover with fanciful swirls if it suits your fancies.
- Add ice cream to meringue. Add enough ice cream until the bowl is full. Flatten out the top of the bowl.
- Freeze meringue and ice cream at least 2 hours in the back of the freezer (but before/without icicles forming that would add unwanted moisture). Bake same day.
- Prepare oven: Lower top oven shelf/rack just low enough to cover the height of the Baked Alaska plus a minimum of 6 inches from top of oven to broil.
- Pull ice cream/meringue bowl out of freezer and place into oven ontop of a piece of broil-safe aluminum foil (without bowl or plastic). Broil for several minutes until there's a toasted top. Safety tip: do not turn or move the cake (optional) in the hot oven without turning OFF the oven first! Then wait for the broil setting oven to cool down before opening oven door and turning oven/broil setting back on (optional). Watch the broiling for several short minutes until lightly toasted pretty, that happens quickly.
- Put together still hard ice cream/meringue and set ontop of cake. Freeze Baked Alaska (ice cream, meringue, and cake) until ready to share and eat.
Notes
Easy broiling quick tips for beginners: in a traditional, no-fancy home or apartment oven with bake and broil settings, "broil" is either an "on" or "off" setting (that can be around 525°F) unlike "bake" that has temperature options. Many ovens have a safety feature that "beeps" and then turns the broiling off if it gets too hot. You'll know because the top of the oven heating element will go froma fiery red to black color, so it's easy to tell what's happening inside the oven with the oven door closed.