A Mother's Day treat: Mini mocha baked Alaskas
Let's say you dream of wanting to make a very special dessert for mom on Mother's Day but don't really have the time or the expertise. Here's a cheating version of baked Alaska. Sure it's antique — is there any other two-word phrase in English as capable of teleporting us in an instant to the dining room of a cruise ship in the 1950s? — but it's also delicious. We're talking about ice cream surrounded by cake, frosted with meringue and baked until golden. Back in the day, they'd light it on fire before setting it down on your table, a flourish we've forgone on the way to simplifying preparation from start to finish.
First of all, I've shrunk it down so that everybody gets to dig into his or her own personal Alaska. Next, instead of having to bake a cake to start, we're rolling with store-bought brownies. You'll be looking for the chewy kind, not the cake-y kind, so they don't fall apart. (Soft chewy brownies are easy to smoosh down, a key step in this recipe.) Working with brownies about half-an-inch thick, you'll cut them into inch-and-a half squares. (Two of them comprise a portion.) As for the ice cream, it's store-bought, like the brownies.
Making the meringue is the only part of this recipe that requires some effort, and you don't have to mess with it until the last minute. You'll have made the ice-cream sandwiches several hours ahead of time (perhaps even the day before) and kept them tightly wrapped in the freezer. At the moment of truth, preheat the oven, whip up the meringue (it takes 5 minutes), frost the sandwiches and then bake the cakes. Four or 5 minutes later, you'll pull these things of beauty out of the oven and take a bow.
Besides the minimal prep, the glory of this recipe is that no matter how you apply the meringue to the outside of the ice-cream sandwiches — smooth or in peaks — you'll have fashioned a showstopper.
• Sara Moulton is host of public television's “Sara's Weeknight Meals.” She was executive chef at Gourmet magazine for nearly 25 years and spent a decade hosting several Food Network shows, including “Cooking Live.” Her latest cookbook is “HomeCooking 101.”