Baked Alaska: my first Fanny classic

This week's recipe has a slightly different origin to my usual charity shop finds; it's from a pile of magazines sent to me by a very generous Twitter follower, and fellow vintage cookbook addict, Cosmic Apple Pips. The hours I've wasted on social media suddenly seem completely worth it! The magazines in question are part of Fanny Cradock's 1970 Cookery Programme, a weekly publication stuffed full of colour photos and "pic-strips", Fanny's rather severe advice and garlic pushing (we didn't like it in the 70s) and a wine column written by her husband, monocle-wearing Johnnie. 

There are so many things I love about the programme, but I think my favourite aspect is the food styling and use of crockery and props, both old and new, which Fanny name checks in the caption - "we think it looks rather nice sting on its 1/ junk shop plate!". If you like the sound of it, there's another blog entirely devoted to the programme called Keep Calm and Fanny On :)

Baked Alaska appears in issue 7, which is all about omelettes... because Fanny says it's called Omelette Novegienne and the Americans have nicknamed it Baked Alaska. And rather than being a technical challenge as evidenced by the Great British Bake Off and the infamous "Bingate" incident, Fanny assures us that it's "far, far easier to make than Yorkshire pudding". So a bit tricky then.

As usual, I've followed the basic rules, as she's very strict about that sort of thing, but added a few of my own variations. I made a fatless sponge for the base according to Fanny's recipe, but rather than using tinned pineapple under the ice cream dome, I made one of our favourite frozen puds, mango sorbet, which is unbelievably simple if you have an ice cream machine, and layered it into the ice cream. And as I've successfully conquered meringues before (http://bit.ly/2sHCZFw) I used the same recipe and technique here.

Ingredients 

For the filling

1 tin mango slices in juice

500ml vanilla ice cream, softened at room temperature

For the sponge

110g caster sugar

3 eggs

70g self-raising flour

For the meringue

6 egg whites

300g caster sugar

Handful chopped pistachios

Method

1. Make the mango sorbet by blitzing the mango slices and juice, then churn in an ice cream maker for 30 minutes until almost completely frozen

2. Line a pudding basin or similar shaped (domed) bowl with cling film. Add half the softened vanilla ice cream and press down. Add the mango sorbet to make a thick layer then freeze for about 10-15 minutes. Add the remainder of the ice cream to fill the bowl, level and wrap in the overhanging cling film. Freeze for at least 2 hours.

3. To make the sponge, heat the sugar in a hot oven for 6 minutes, then tip onto the eggs cracked into a mixing bowl. Beat until light and fluffy and almost double in size, then gently fold in the flour. Pour into a lined circular cake tin, a little larger than your ice cream filled pudding basin, and bake at 180C for 15 minutes. Cool slightly, remove from the tin and, once completely cold, wrap and chill until assembly time.

4. Heat the sugar for the meringue in a hot oven until starting to melt at the edges (this bit is optional but adds a little caramel taste). Whisk the egg whites in a very clean bowl until foamy then throw in the sugar and continue to whisk energetically until the mixture is very stiff. If you're not going to use immediately, chill in the fridge.

5. Assemble quickly: unwrap the chilled sponge and place on a baking tray; unmould the ice cream (a few seconds in hot water will help if it's stuck), remove the film and place the ice cream in the centre of the sponge base; spoon or pipe the meringue all over the ice cream down to the sponge base (I don't have photos of this as thee wasn't time!) then pop in a hot oven at 220C for 5 minutes to brown the meringue. As its too tricky to take photos and assemble a Baked Alaska, here's Fanny's pic-strip featuring the delectable Peter:

The following circumstances do not facilitate the assembly procedure:

- a blocked piping nozzle

- an audience

- very fresh eggs that don't whip as well

- not starting until 10.30pm

and since I made all of these rookie errors, I ended up throwing the meringue onto the ice cream and sponge, while it proceeded to slip down the sides as everything was getting too warm. But it made it into the oven rather than the bin and the final result didn't look too bad:

The sorbet and ice cream were still frozen and the meringue was cooked and gooey. Cutting slices was a bit messy but a handful of toasted pistachios made a good disguise! The sweet meringue and ice cream is perfectly offset by the fresh mango sorbet, and the light sponge holds it all together. Next time, I'd try making individual ones to avoid the messy serving bit, and Mary Berry says you can freeze them for an hour before cooking which might help the presentation. And I'm getting a bigger piping nozzle!