Vegan Baked Alaska

Vegaaninen Baked Alaska – jäätelökakku

The range of vegan ice creams available in Finland has increased dramatically over the past couple of years, but my favourite has to be Kolmen Kaverin (or 3 friends in English).    It is a small company formed by three friends who wanted to produce great quality ice cream without loads of additives.  I have been lucky enough to work with them at a couple of my pop-up brunches and have to say they are passionate about promoting their vegan range. ( This year all of their team are taking part in January’s vegaanihaaste!).  Their vegan ice creams are coconut cream based and they currently  have 4 amazing flavours, peppermint and chocolate, pineapple and coconut, liquorice and chocolate and  chocolate caramel nut flavour, which won best vegan ice cream flavour at the Finnish Vege awards.

As much as I like eating ice cream straight from the pot, I wanted to test out some recipes which incorporated ice cream.  Vegan Baked Alaska is a bit of a retro classic, consisting of a dome of ice cream on top of a sponge cake, incased with meringue, which is then caramelised with a blow torch or in a very hot oven.  I was unsure of how well a vegan version would work, but I should have once again believed in the power of aquafaba.  The Alaska tasted great!  By adding hot sugar syrup to whisked aqufaba it became a silky smooth Italian meringue, the result was a lot more stable than a traditional meringue which is baked for a long time in the oven.  It caramelised well and the ice cream remained fully frozen.

So why not step back in time and give this somewhat impressive dessert a try?

I have not been paid for this post, but I was gifted the ice cream.  However I can easily recommend Kolmen Kaverin Ice cream, it really is my favourite.  It is avialable in most supermarkets here in Finland and they have also launched in Sweden where they new known as 3 vänner.  Hopefully they will be expanding to more countries soon!

 

Vegan Baked Alaska – makes 4 individual Alaska 

1 dl/ 100 ml aquafaba

1/2 tsp cream of tartar

100 g sugar

0.6 dl/ 60 ml water

 

Plant based cake – I used the same cake recipe as for my Vegan Tiramisu, but used a larger 38 x 26 rectangular tin to make the cake a little thinner and cooked it for only 15 minutes.

Fruit jam

Kolmen Kaverin ice cream (I used the chocolate caramel nut flavour)

 

Cut four rounds from your cake and top with a spoonful of jam.  Place on a lined tray that will fit into your freezer, before topping each round with a scoop of ice cream.  Freeze for a couple of hours, to allow the ice cream to set as much as possible.

Meanwhile make your Italian meringue.  Add the aquafaba and cream of tartar to the bowl of a standing mixer.  Whisk the aquafaba until it forms stiff peaks.  This can take a while, be patient as you need it as stiff as possible.

Next make a sugar syrup.  Add the sugar and water to a saucepan and bring to a slow boil.  Using a sugar thermometer allow the syrup to continue boiling until it reaches a temperature of between 116 and 120 degrees c.

Turn your mixer back on and slowly drizzle the syrup into the aquafaba as it whisks.  Finally turn the mixer up to full for a final one to two minute whisk.  The meringue should be thick and glossy.

Spoon the meringue into a piping bag and remove the cake/ ice cream rounds from the freezer.  Quickly pipe the meringue to completely cover the ice cream.  Use a blow torch to caramelise the outside of the meringue.  Be careful as it can catch and burn easily.

Serve immediately.