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Dessert

Baked Alaska

A dessert of ice cream on sponge cake topped with meringue and browned.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vanilla and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Baked Alaska

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the ice cream

  1. Make 2 quarts of ice cream according to your preferred recipe and pack it well in a freezer container. Let it stand until hard.

Make the meringue

  1. Just before serving, beat the egg whites until stiff. Gradually add the powdered sugar while continuing to beat until well combined.

Assemble and bake

  1. Place the sponge cake on a serving plate and turn the frozen ice cream out onto the cake.

  2. Thickly pile the meringue around the edge and top of the ice cream without smoothing it.

  3. Place the dish on a wooden box cover and quickly brown the meringue in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C).

  4. Serve immediately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Vanilla + sugartop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Vanilla + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Egg + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + vanillatop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Vanilla and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped into a stiff foam that forms the meringue covering that insulates and browns.
Powdered sugar
Stabilises the whipped egg whites and sweetens the meringue.
Ice cream
Frozen centre that stays cold while the meringue browns outside.
Sponge cake
Soft base layer that holds the ice cream and absorbs any melt.

The step that matters

Brown the meringue quickly in a hot oven. Meringue is mostly air and sugar, so it browns fast at high heat. A short, hot bake sets and colours the outside before the frozen ice cream inside has time to melt.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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