August 2010 Daring Baker's 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 Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

 As you can see from the title of this blog entry, I opted for the baked alaska.  My reasoning was twofold: 1) I've always been intrigued by mentions of the dessert, and 2) I have this great dislike of petit fours (even though the ones made in the challenge would be completely different than those I dislike).  For those who don't know, baked alaska is a layer of cake topped with ice cream, all covered in meringue that is lightly toasted (or torched).

 It wasn't really what I expected, but I couldn't really tell you what it was that I had expected.  From the past few challenges, I've learned something about myself: I do not like desserts that chill cake along with ice cream.  They're fine if they are separate, but I do not like cold cake.  You learn something new about yourself every day!


A heads up: I am super crazy excited about September's Daring Cook's challenge!!!!!!!!