Baked Alaska

I realized the other day that the kids always eat the ice cream and the frosting when we have birthday cake, but never the cake. So I thought it might be fun to have an ice cream cake.

While I was researching how to make one, I came across several recipes for baked alaska.

I've always wanted to try that. So for Elijah's first birthday party tonight, we had baked alaska.

It was fairly dramatic to pull an ice cream cake out of the oven. It tasted great, too. But as soon as we broke the meringue shell, the meringue all slid off onto the baking sheet. I think we had too much meringue on it (the recipe called for 8 egg whites, and I'm pretty sure we only needed 3), so when the top browned and set, it became too heavy for the underneath layer, which didn't cook. That's my guess anyway.

That was a fun adventure. This time I used vanilla ice cream and strawberry ice cream, with a layer of frozen berries and mangoes in between. Next time, I think I'd like chocolate chocolate chunk ice cream with raspberry ice cream, with a layer of fresh raspberries frozen between.

Turns out ice cream cakes can be more work than a regular cake--especially if you turn them into a large baked alaska.

Fun adventure, though! Worth trying, for sure. Tim said, "Next time, we should do it for an adult party. They'd appreciate it more".  Next time I'm using a smaller bowl to mold the ice cream "bombe," too.