Behind the Recipe -- Jeri Quinzio

The State of Baked Alaska

 

When the U.S. paid the Russians $7.2 million for Alaska in 1867, the purchase inspired several icy epithets and one terrific dessert.

People called Alaska “Johnson’s Polar Bear Garden,” “Seward’s Folly,” and “Seward’s Icebox.” (President Andrew Johnson authorized the purchase. Secretary of State William Seward negotiated it.) The dessert was known variously as “Alaska, Florida,” “Ice-cream en Deguiser,” “Norwegian Omelette,” “Omelette Surprise,” and, finally and forever, Baked Alaska.

Just in case there’s someone out there who doesn’t know, typically Baked Alaska is cake topped with ice cream, covered in meringue, and baked until the meringue is golden.

The principle behind insulating the ice cream with meringue so it could be browned without melting the ice cream was discovered by inventor and scientist Benjamin Thompson, aka Count Rumford, early in the 19th century.  But it was at Delmonico’s, New York’s great Gilded Age restaurant, that the dessert became famous. Chef Charles Ranhofer created a dish he called “Alaska, Florida.” It consisted of individual cakes topped with vanilla and banana ice cream molded into pyramids, covered with meringue, and colored in a hot oven. 

 Mrs. Mary Lincoln, author of the Boston Cook Book (1884), called her version of Baked Alaska “Ice Cream en Deguiser.”  Although she said it was recommended “chiefly for its novelty,” the dessert has endured.

In the 1960s, Baked Alaska became America’s go-to company dessert, probably because everything except the meringue could be bought, rather than made. Most recipes called for purchased ice cream and store-bought or made-from-a-mix cake. So all the hostess had to do was whip up some meringue, pull the cake and ice cream combo out of the freezer, frost it with the meringue and pop it in the oven for a couple of minutes.

It was not only easy and impressive, it was infinitely variable. The 1967 edition of the Better Homes & Gardens Dessert Book featured six different Baked Alaska desserts. “To-each-his-own Alaskas” topped individual cake dessert cups with balls of vanilla ice cream rolled in chopped walnuts or crushed peppermint candy, covered them with meringue and baked them.

Raspberry sherbet and a garnish of sliced canned peaches turned baked Alaska into “Melba Alaska.” “White Mountain Alaska” substituted a baked pie shell for the cake, and was served with chocolate sauce. The recipe for “Ribbon Alaska Pie” also called for a baked pie shell. The ice cream was layered with fudge sauce, and crushed peppermint-stick candy was added to the meringue.

“Mile-high Mocha Alaska” was based on a brownie layer rather than a cake. A recipe for the brownie layer was given, but a note added,  “For a speedy Alaska, use brownie mix.” The recipe suggested chocolate and coffee ice creams.

“N-M Fresh Flowerpot,” the most unusual recipe of the group, was attributed to Neiman-Marcus. It consisted of individual baked Alaskas made in “real red-clay flowerpots!” After the meringue was browned, you were instructed to “Poke two soda straws into each dessert as channels for flower stems. Insert flower in each straw – in the Zodiac Room at Neiman-Marcus, they use garnet roses.”

Your Own Baked Alaska

Make it ’60s style with store-bought components or be contemporary and make everything from scratch. Either way, it’s an elegant dessert.

The base can be one cake or brownie layer, several individuals ones, or a baked pie shell. Whichever you prefer.

Choose your favorite flavor or flavors of ice cream.

Make a meringue. If you like, sprinkle it with coconut, slivered almonds, or confectioners sugar.

Place the base on a rimless cookie sheet (for easier removal after baking).

Top it with the ice cream. Cover with the meringue. Place in freezer.

When ready to serve, put it in a preheated 475 degree oven for about three minutes or until the meringue browns. Slide it off the cookie sheet onto a serving platter and wow your guests.

Cooking the Books

A few years back, Julie Powell cooked her way through Julia Child’s famed Mastering the Art of French Cooking and wrote about the experience on her blog. The blog became a best-selling book, and the book is now a movie, "Julie & Julia." Meryl Streep, no less, plays Julia.

Now others are cooking and blogging about making every recipe from cookbooks by star chefs like Thomas Keller or Gray Kunz.  Give the writers points for ambition. For originality? Not so much.

All of which got me thinking. Someone should make – and write about making –  every recipe from a historic cookbook like, say, Auguste Escoffier’s Ma Cuisine, or  Pellegrino Artusi’s La scienza in cucina e l’art di mangiar bene, or even Fannie Farmer’s The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book. Preferably someone who has more time and energy than I do.

But if I were going to take on that kind of challenge, I’d choose M. Emy’s L’art de bien faire les glaces d’office. Written in 1768, it was the first cookbook totally devoted to ices and ice creams.

Emy made all sorts of ices and ice creams – pistachio, saffron, truffle, rye bread, raspberry, cinnamon, and many more. I’ve already made many of them, and adapted some for my cookbook, Ice Cream: The Ultimate Cold Comfort. Although I didn’t methodically make every single recipe in Emy’s book, it might be fun to do so.

But would it make make a good film? I don’t know. When I made some of the ice creams the first time, there was some drama, or possibly comedy. Like the time I forgot about the ice cream mixture cooking on the stove and wound up with curds and whey all over the kitchen. Or the time I put too much lemon peel in the lemon sorbet, and everyone spent the evening flossing.

A clever screenwriter could probably come up with a romantic angle. Boy meets girl at the dairy case buying cream. They fall in love over their mutual passion for pistachio, break up when he buys frozen yogurt, reconnect over orange marmalade ice cream.

Would Meryl Streep be interested? Probably not. But I think Drew Barrymore would be perfect as a novice cook trying to recreate all the recipes and having lots of kitchen mishaps.  As for Emy, I’d go with David Suchet. He played Inspector Poirot to persnickety perfection, so he’d be great as the meticulous M. Emy. I think the idea has possibilities.

Orange Marmalade Ice Cream

Emy did not believe in using ingredients out of season. He said they tasted better in season, and that waiting for them made them all the sweeter. But when his employer insisted on fruit ice cream in winter, Emy used preserves he’d made when the fruits were at their peak. That is what inspired this wonderful marmalade ice cream. It would probably be even better with preserves you make yourself. But I wouldn’t know.

1 cup top-quality Seville orange marmalade
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
3 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons orange liqueur, such as Grand Marnier

If the marmalade has very long pieces of peel, chop it a little so the pieces are no more than a half- inch long.

Mix marmalade, lemon juice and cream together in a bowl and chill for at least 12 hours or overnight.

Churn in your ice cream machine, following manufacturer’s instructions. When it’s nearly done, add the liqueur.

Store tightly covered in freezer until ready to serve. Makes one quart.

When life hands you lemons, make sorbet

To  make lemon sorbet, you need three pounds of sugar, three and a half pounds
of salt, thirteen pounds of snow, and three lemons.

That’s according to a recipe from Antonio Latini’s 1692 book Lo scalco alla moderna (The Modern Steward). Of course, the salt and snow were intended for the freezing pot, not for the sorbet itself. Chances are the cooks the book was intended for would have known what Latini meant. It’s unlikely that anyone made a super-salty, snowy sorbet.

When freezing ices and ice creams was new, the ice or snow and salt were as, or more, important than the other ingredients. So they had positions of prominence in recipes. Once the process was more familiar, the ice and salt took a back seat to the ingredients for the mixture.

To freeze the ices, cooks put the snow or ice in a tub along with the salt. Then they mixed the ingredients for the ice or ice cream together, put the mixture in a smaller container called a sorbètiere, covered it, and put it in the tub. After letting it sit for half an hour or so, they opened the container and stirred the contents. They had to be careful not to let any ice or salt get into the sorbètiere. They repeated the process a couple of times, until the sorbet was frozen. Stirring ensured that the sorbet would be light and snowy, rather than hard and icy.

Fast forward to 2006. I was in Sardinia at a parade for the island’s patron saint, Saint Efisio. As always at parades everywhere, there were lots of vendors selling souvenirs and snacks. I saw a stand where lemon sorbet was being sold, so I rushed right over.

To my surprise, a young man was sitting next to a truck making the sorbet in old-fashioned sorbètieres. Not cranked ice cream makers. Not electric ice cream makers. Sorbètieres.

He poured the lemon mixture into the sorbètiere and put it in a tub filled with ice and salt. Then he turned the sorbetière with one hand and stirred the contents briskly with the other. It took him just a few minutes. As soon as the ice was ready, he handed it off to the people running the stand. They dished it out into small paper cups, with spoon/straws, and served them to the customers.

The sorbet was delectable, tart and refreshing. It was firm enough to eat with a spoon at first, then to drink through the straw as it melted in the summer’s heat.

It was a 21st century treat made the same way it was made in the 17th century.

 Lemon Sorbet

Here’s my lemon sorbet recipe. Make it in your contemporary ice cream freezer or in an old-fashioned sorbètiere. Make it whenever life hands you some nice, fat, juicy lemons.

2 cups water
2 cups of sugar
Lemon peel
1 cup of fresh-squeezed lemon juice (3-4 lemons)
2 tablespoons plain or lemon-flavored vodka

Make a simple syrup by heating the sugar and water together in a saucepan, stirring until the sugar is completely dissolved.

Take the mixture off the heat and add the peel from the lemons. Let them steep until the mixture cools.

Stir in the lemon juice. Chill, preferably overnight.

Strain the mixture. Stir in the vodka. Pour the mixture into your ice ceam maker and freeze according to manufacturer’s directions.

It’s nice to serve garnished with a sprig of fresh mint.

Makes one quart.