Baked Alaska

So, because the cake I made for George and his mom was such a disaster, I decided to make a different cake for George's official Birthday. The cake I chose? BAKED ALASKA!

It's this amazing combination of chocolate cake, ice cream, meringue, and homemade caramel sauce. It's fairly simple, but has several steps so it is rather time-intensive.

You start out making the chocolate cake and allowing it to cool. When it's cool enough, you pack a bunch of ice cream in the bottom of a metal bowl and top it with the chocolate cake and put it back in the freezer for about 4 hours so it sets nice and hard.

While still in the freezer (right before you get the cake out), you whip up some meringue.

And then you spread this wonderful fluff all over the cake!

The cake then goes back in the freezer until you're read to eat it. During this time, you make the caramel sauce.

First-time experience for me: not only was this the first time I've ever attempted to make Baked Alaska, it was also my very first time inside an ABC store. The caramel sauce is supposed to be flambeed and the recipe called for hazelnut liqueur (don't worry... it all gets burned out!). No stores carried it, so I had to go into the ABC store. I felt super guilty because I had both Lance and Jude with me while I perused the alcohol. Lance kept asking what was in the bottles and wanted me to read the labels. I felt like people were looking at me and judging me for bringing my children with me to buy booze.  I must really love George.

George came home from work and helped by making the sauce.

After going to dinner with Nate (George's brother), we came home, browned the meringue, and dug in. There were a few cracks on the top because I think the ice cream was a little soft and I didn't whip the meringue long enough, but all in all, it was a fly-away success!

Yum!