Daring Bakers: Ice Cream Petit Fours and Baked Alaska

The August 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Elissa of 17 and Baking. For the first time, The Daring Bakers partnered with Sugar High Fridays for a co-event and Elissa was the gracious hostess of both. Using the theme of beurre noisette, or browned butter, Elissa chose to challenge Daring Bakers to make a pound cake to be used in either a Baked Alaska or in Ice Cream Petit Fours. The sources for Elissa’s challenge were Gourmet magazine and David Lebovitz’s “The Perfect Scoop”.

I was inspired to do both the Baked Alaska and the Ice Cream Petit Fours. I started out making the vanilla ice cream from the previous daring bakers challenge and I used that in two of my Baked Alaska's. I also made a coconut ice cream, which I used in the petit fours and in the other two Baked Alaska's.


When I was brainstorming flavor ideas I knew the browned butter pound cake would give the desserts a nuttiness, so I thought why not do a play on almond joys and coconut cream pie? I used a really simple cocount ice cream recipe from allrecipes.com and I followed the rest components step by step.


For my decoration I started out drizziling some white chocolate on a few and then I decided to go with some toasted coconut that I had left over from making the ice cream. The petit fours turned out to be pretty amazing. I loved the combination of the chocolate with the toasted coconut and browned butter cake, it was divine.


The coconut Baked Alaska's turned out just like I imagined they would, it was like eating a slice of coconut cream pie, which is my favorite. Every step of this months challenge were some really great experiences for me. I loved making the ice cream again, but venturing out a little with my flavors this time around. I'm also glad that I finally made some petit fours, which I've been dying to make for quite some time now.

I'm back in school now, so I'm not sure how much space or time I will have for the challenges, but I'm looking forward to the reveal of next month's challenge!

Coconut Ice Cream
allrecipes.com

1 cup milk
1 (140z) can cream of coconut
1 1/2 cups heavy cream
1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut (optional)

Combine the milk and cream of coconut in the container of a food processor or blender, and mix thoroughly. Stir in cream and flaked coconut.

Pour into the container of an ice cream maker, and freeze according to the manufacturer's instructions.

*When making the recipe I first toasted the coconut before I put it in the food processor. It gives both a better flavor and texture than the raw coconut.

Anna