Birthday Baked Alaska

I received this birthday cake request last year and I dutifully stored it in the back of my mind under “Cake Requests”. I find it pretty helpful to get requests – I have a good direction of what to prepare and I can explore how to really “kick it up a notch”. For those not in the know, a Baked Alaska is a cake/dessert comprised of a cake base, topped with an ice cream layer and then topped with meringue. And then it’s baked to brown the meringue (just briefly) – so that the ice cream stays intact! I’ve seen it in various forms – in a dome or pie-type presentation. I’ve even seen small tart-type Baked Alaska.

My gameplan:

The general flavour request was ‘coconut’ – so the ice cream was a toasted coconut flavour (1 cup toasted coconut steeped in the cream, strained before cooling). My twist on the cake was to do a Baked Alaska who had a sexy dalliance with a Dairy Queen cake in South America. So I incorporated a layer of dulce de leche (mimicking the DQ fudge layer) and a blond cookie crunch (mimicking the DQ cookie crunch layer). I also put a layer of toasted coconut in between these and the ice cream layers. The based was a simple dark chocolate cake.

A few ‘in progress’ pictures:

Coconut ice cream churning away (added an extra egg yolk for mega richness)

Mock cookie crunch – Golden Oreos crushed up and then mixed with white candy melt, and then frozen in a layer

Everything ready for cake assembly – my cake ‘dome’  is behind the ice cream machine, lined with plastic wrap (for easy removal), toasted coconut, frozen cookie layer, ice cream, cake layer and dulce de leche.

Dulce de leche layer – toasted coconut, ice cream and cake layer to go!

Fast forward the next day – unmolded from it’s frozen cocoon! And ready for the meringue coating….

Can you overbeat a swiss meringue? Yes. It’s definitely not as smooth as I would like but it’s still fluffy and holds shape well. 

Lucky for me – I had an opportunity to turn the camera over to the birthday girl who captured the torching in action!

Ta da!

I would say this Baked Alaska and Dairy Queen sun vacation love child turned out pretty good…