Baked Alaska!

In case you didn't know, although I'd be amazed if you didn't, I am going to Alaska. Very soon.  I've been talking about it, thinking about it, planning it, obsessing over it, boring everyone to death about it since September.  Now that the trip is finally within reach I decided to celebrate with some baked Alaska, in cupcake form!!

Step 1 is to bake a cake.  I chose to just make a box mix chocolate cake. Easy peasy.  Try not to fill the cupcakes up too high to have room for the ice cream.  Or of you do fill them up too high, mush them down like I did. Either way it works!  I made 12 cupcakes, the rest of the batter I used to make a round cake.  This round cake was dubbed "hand cake" so you can eat it with your bare hands while standing at the counter.

But I digress.  After the cake has cooled and the ice cream has softened (both can happen at the same time, hooray!) plop a little scoop of ice cream on your cupcakes.  I used strawberry ice cream and a cookie scoop to portion it into the cupcakes and smushed it down to make a flat layer. This goes into the freezer to harden.

The final layer is the meringue, 2 eggs whites, some sugar, some vanilla.  Some recipes call for cream of tartar, but I didn't find it integral.

This went into a 450 degree oven for about 3 minutes and came out like this....

And now for the final unveiling....

Ta-da!!  The ice cream on the perimeter gets a bit melty, but the center stays nice and cold.

Baked Alaska cupcakes were a delicious and dazzling way to get myself pumped up for my cruise.

Off to Alaska! See you all when I get back!

Wonder what I'll be eating.....