Welcome to how to cook that I am Ann Reardon
Today we are making bombe alaska dessert with a strawberry centre in the middle.
Special shout out to keva, christiana, Remi J & Stephan who requested this dessert.
First thing you need to do is bake a sponge cake, I have used half of my sponge cake recipe
and baked it flat in a tray.
If you are new to How To Cook That you will find the fluffy sponge cake recipe video on
the channel under cakes and I'll put a link in the description below.
Using small bowls in the size you want your bombe alaksa desserts to be, cut out a pieces
of cake in the right size.
And then store these in an airtight container until you are ready to use them.
Wash and hull your strawberries.
If strawberries are not in season you can use other fruits.
Raspberries work well, you can use frozen ones and heat them with a little bit of lemon
juice and sugar.
Put your strawberries into a good quality bag and then add a little bit of vanilla essence.
Usually when I cook strawberries like this I add some sugar but for this dessert we won't
because you want the filling to be a little tart to offset the sweetness of the rest of
the dessert.
Flatten out the bag as best as you can and seal it, nearly the whole way across leaving
the corner section open.
Place it into a pan of boiling water with the open corner at the top and most of the
air will be pushed out to the top, and then just let that out and seal the bag shut.
Rest something on top of the bag so that the strawberries are sitting just below the surface
of the water but not touching the bottom of the pan.
Return that to the lowest heat setting and leave it to sit and cook slowly.
Next take some ice cream and spoon it into your dishes, pushing it all the way down.
Then use a spoon to smooth out a section in the middle.
Return this to the freezer.
If you have a deep freezer or a freezer on a colder setting it can be ideal for this
but it is not essential.
Check on your strawberries, if they are ready they will have released lots of this delicious
juice and they'll be soft but not mushy.
Set those aside to cool
Once your ice cream is solid and your strawberries are cooled.
Turn on your oven and then you are ready to make your italian meringue.
Place your egg whites into the bowl of a mixer.
Then put the water and sugar into a saucepan.
All of the ingredient quantities that you need for this recipe are on the website howtocookthat.net
there is a link in the description below this video.
Stir it until the sugar has dissolved then add a candy thermometer.
This part of the dessert needs to be done just before you are ready to serve you can't
do this ahead of time.
Beat your egg whites until they form stiff peaks.
Remember if you get any egg yolk in your whites at all they will not whip up.
Once your sugar syrup reaches 238 degrees F or 115 degrees C
remove it from the heat and with your beaters running pour it in a thin stream into the
egg whites.
If you feel the side of the bowl it will be very hot.
The hot sugar syrup cooks and stabilises the egg whites.
You need to continue beating until it is nearly cooled, it is ok if they are still slightly
warm.
Run a knife around the edge of your ice cream Spoon some of your strawberries into the centre
Then top with your sponge cake and push down slightly.
If your ice cream is set really hard you can place it in a bowl of warm water to loosen
it from the bowl.
Then invert it and use a knife to help ease it out of the bowl.
You can make one large bomb alaska instead of individual ones to do that you can wither
make a large bowl shape of a log shape works really nicely if you put the strawberries
down the centre of it.
That just makes it easy to slice and it looks nice.
Place your italian meringue int a piping bag, mine is fitted with a star tip, you can use
a round one or anything that you have.
When piping the italian meringue you can really use your creativity and pipe it in any way
that you like.
This one I am piping it in spikes.
The two things that you need to remember are one it need to be completely covered because
the italian meringue insulates the ice cream from the heat of the oven.
And two you need to pipe it reasonably quickly because you don't want the ice cream to melt.
You can swirl the meringue around from the bottom all the way up to the top.
OR try doing lines going up the sides or make up your own design
To brown them you have two options the first is to
quickly place them in a hot oven until they are just browning and serve immediately.
Your second option is to flambe it, to do that bake quickly in the oven to warn the
outside.
Slightly warm some spirits like brandy and ignite the alcohol and pour it over the dessert.
Things to remember when flambeing are If you warm spirits light more easily but
if you overheat them all the alcohol will already be evaporated off so it is not going
to light at all.
- If you use too much alcohol it will burn the meringue which doesn't taste good you
can see around the bottom here it is charcoaled.
Don't pour alcohol from the bottle or the flame can follow it up and cause the bottle
to explode The flame doesn't last for long and is only
pale so make sure you dim the lights or you wont be able to see the effect and flambe
it at the table.
Whether you flambe or not when you cut into the dessert you reveal the soft strawberry
centre, encased with ice cream and then the meringue which is crispy on top.
It is such a delicious dessert if you have never had it before you have got to bake one.
Thanks for watching and don't forget you can put your request for recipes for desserts
and cake decorating and chocolate in the comments section below don't forget to click like and
share the videos and subscribe and I'll see you all next Friday Have a great week.