Thursday 26 August 2010

Daring Bakers' Challenge - August 2010: Ice Cream Petit Fours / Baked Alaska with Brown Butter Pound Cake

It's that time of the month again... DB challenge is to be revealed! I can't believe how time just swished by so quick. Before you know it, it's December again (well, let's not exaggerate). This month's challenge gave us a choice either to make petit fours, Baked Alaska or both. I decided to go for the Baked Alaska just so I can play with some flames! Before I continue my blog, I shall post the mandatory blog checking lines for this challenge.


Blog-checking lines: The August 2010 Daring Bakers' challenge was hosted by Elisa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elisa 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".


There's basically three main components to a Baked Alaska; ice cream atop a cake then altogether fully encased with snowy meringue. The meringue is then torched or baked until brown in color; it is sometimes served flambéed. For this challenge, the cake part of our Baked Alaska has to be the beurre noisette (brown butter) pound cake. I have no complaints in using this pound cake recipe; it was a really delectable butter cake with a subtle nutty taste from the brown butter. The taste of the cake actually reminded me of the infamous blue tinned Royal Dansk Danish butter cookies that I used to gorge indulge when I was young; it certainly brought back childhood memories! 

  
I chose hazelnut praline cream cheese as the flavour of my ice cream for simple reasons. Firstly, hazelnut praline to compliment the nutty pound cake. Then secondly, cream cheese because I have bountiful supply of it! I don't know if you have noticed, but most of my blog post for this month had some cream cheese factor. It wasn't planned or anything; I just saw a good 2-for-1 bargain on the grocery. I know two packs of cream cheese is not much, but mind you most of the time I just bake for two, so two packs of cream cheese does go a long way in my household! Lastly, the sound of hazelnut praline cream cheese does make me salivate!


I've prepared the meringue, all my components were set; the time had come to play with my torch (bought specially for this challenge)! I really really had a blast, and it definitely brought out the kid in me. All these flames gave me a fiery urge to go all daring with the glow of heat. The rum was out, and I had a tea cup filled with dazzling blaze of flambéed rum ready to be poured onto the toasted snow. I might have gone overboard though as the scarf I used for the backdrop of my picture caught some flame, so now it has an incy wincy hole. I must admit it was my favourite scarf, so I was really disappointed. I had no choice, but to look at the brighter side of things - my scarf has more meaning to it now than it had! Good self comfort?


Anyway, this was a really fun and exciting challenge. To be honest, when I first saw the challenge, I wasn't all enthused. I was like, "ice cream and cake... didn't we just do that last month?" Nevertheless, I decided to join in the fun, which I'm glad I did. The waves of fire made this challenge interesting! Looking forward to what next month's DB host has up his/her sleeves; hope it's something new!

I sprinkled some hazelnut praline powder on the crater of my Baked Alaska.


Bisou bisou,
Charlotte

11 comments:

  1. Charlotte, I wish I had been brave enough to flambée like you were! Maybe another time... sorry about your scarf, but I have to admit that when I first saw the picture of your flaming Alaska at the forum I almost saw all that fabric around your plate catching fire :o I felt scared! But I'm happy that everything turned out just fine. I'm sure you will get an even more beautiful scarf to replace the burned one. Your Alaska is beautifully piped and the ice cream flavor sounds delicious! Looks very professional! BRAVO!!!

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  2. That's funny Renata! :p The scarf fortunately has survived the tragedy; it's still completely wearable. There's just a tiny hole that you can't really notice unless you really search for it. :) Thanks for the lovely comments :)

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  3. Lovely baked alaska. Very nicely done. Love the swirl of your meringue!

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  4. Hazelnut praline cream cheese ice cream sounds utterly delicious! I love the fact you flambeed it too.

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  5. Now THAT, is an impressive flame! Great stuff and intriguing ice cream flavour :)

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  6. Hazelnut praline cream cheese? That's a show stopper of an ice cream! I also love your piping and even torching... all around beautiful!

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  7. It looks beautiful, and I love the flaming picture. Too bad about the scarf, but now you have a story to go with it. Your flavours sound wonderful--I made some cream cheese ice cream earlier this month and loved it, but I bet it would be even better with hazelnut praline!
    :)

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  8. I love the photos of the flames, it looks like you had lots of fun torching the baked Alaska! Your flavor choices sound wonderful, and the meringue decorations look gorgeous!

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  9. The flames look like so much fun!!! The Baked Alaska looks great! Well done.

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  10. thank you everyone for the positive comments ♥

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  11. You make me want some ice cream and cheesecake right now :) Wonderful job!

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♥ Love to hear what you think of my post!:) Everyone's welcome to comment :) Bisou bisou ♥

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