Baked Alaska – French Earl Grey Ice Cream and Passionfruit (Daring Bakers August 2010)

To skip this rant and onto the original post, scroll down…

*Edit May 2012: A “similar” recipe to this was recently discovered to have been used on the Seven Network’s reality tv cooking show My Kitchen Rules (season 3) by contestant Samantha Bui as well as published in the accompanying cookbook and on her blog (now erased). And by “similar” I mean the same earl grey ice cream, the same passionfruit brown butter pound cake and the same recipes with virtually the same ingredients and measurements. I believe the similarities are too blatant to be a coincidence. Naturally they all denied any wrongdoing.

I normally let things like this slide because it’s the ugly side of food blogging that we all have to deal with regularly but publishing two plagiarised recipes in a cookbook is wrong and credit should be given where it’s due. Legally we have no recourse but I’m not going to lie down and stay quiet about it for their benefit. Petty? Oh god yes. Satisfying? Oh god yes.

So let it officially be known that the original recipes of this Baked / Bombe Alaska (fyi not bomb MKR) belongs to Gourmet and David Lebovitz (and I had permission to use it through The Daring Bakers). As for the earl grey ice cream and passionfruit cake idea?

I DID IT FIRST!

Stick that in your pipe MKR.

*Ah feels better* Now onto the post!

I confess that I’ve been a little slack with Daring Bakers this year. A challenge there, a challenge here… and one that was half half done…all pretty much last minute rush jobs.

I also admit that it wasn’t just poor time management that was my downfall but rather because I’ve struggled to find inspiration with challenges this year. Nobody’s problem but mine. It was just hard for me to get in the mood for ice cream with two frozen dessert challenges in a row (these past few nights have been soooo cold! Wah wah wah). And now I was to face my nemesis, meringue, for the second time in three months. 

So on to the Baked Alaska. Classic dessert, but I’ve always preferred not to ruin my cake and ice cream with meringue, so it’s one that I’ve never thought to make. I’m such a meringue hater, oops. But this presented an opportunity to wield a mother-of-a-blowtorch that I, coincidently, recently purchased with a high level of glee from my local hardware store. Glee for my new weapon and glee for the tradie perve fest at Mitre 10. Yee ha! (I’m so tragic)

My piping skills are atrocious so I just grabbed a palette knife and starting icing the thing. Now the fun part. You really need a giant-assed blowtorch for maximum toasting fun and to watch how quickly the Baked Alaska burned was a sight to behold. As for the dessert itself. No matter how hard I try, I really don’t like meringue especially when it is in a soft, marshmallowy form. I’ll just take the cake and ice cream separately thanks.

But what’s an Alaska… without fire? Lets flambé! There’s something so camp about the word flambé but in any case, lets bombe this baby! All you need is alcohol that would put hairs on your chest. At least 40-50% alcohol content is fine, although the stronger it is, the longer it’ll take to burn out and your meringue would probably char to a crisp before sliding off from the melting ice cream. Anything 60% or 120 proof? Uh, stay away because you would literally be making an Alaskan (fire)bomb.

Can you tell I like fire in the kitchen? But remember, fire is not to be trifled with so please proceed with responsibility and caution. That is my community announcement for the week. Cheerio!

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”.

Note – Jump over to the Daring Kitchen website for the original and full recipe of the Baked Alaska. I’ll leave you with the recipes for the ice cream, cake and meringue.

Tagged as: As seen on My Kitchen Rules, At least I didn't split my meringue, Baked Alaska, Been there done that!, Bombe Alaska, Brown Butter, Cake, Certifiably plagiarilicious, Copyright of 7 Network HAH!, Daring Bakers, Earl Grey, I did it first, Ice Cream, Imitation is flattery... pfft, Ironically this dessert saved their asses on the show because all the other courses were crap, Manu owes me hugs and kisses, Meringue, Mine looks better :P, Passionfruit, Pound, Suck it My Kitchen Rules, The original Earl Grey and Passionfruit Alaska bitches!, This dessert was so 2 years ago, Yet another reason why I don't watch this crummy show