Hot and Cold: Baked Alaska and the Alaska Purchase

Happy February!

For all those participating in Dry January or for the nearly 20 percent of those who are ditching their New Year’s Resolutions right about now, it's time to indulge.  It is thought that the Anglo-Saxon name for February, Solmonaþ, may have meant “month of cake” because of the cakes they would bake as offerings to deities. While this is probably not true, just an etymological misunderstanding that has been passed down through the centuries, “cake month” is something I can get behind. 

Fittingly, today is National Baked Alaska Day. For those unfamiliar with this classic dessert, it is ice cream with cake either as a base or all around it, slathered with sweet, foamy meringue and baked. That’s right, baked ice cream. While this might seem like a masterful feat, according to Brittanica, it is a “relatively easy dish for home cooks to make.” As a home cook who made a very sticky mess in her kitchen, I believe the term “relatively” might be bandied a bit too loosely. 

Pointing to who created the first version of Baked Alaska gets a little murky. Who first decided to put ice cream in the oven, and how many pans and nerves were ruined in the process? It is most likely that the science of it was discovered by physicist Benjamin Rumford. Rumford, an American-born British spy, fled to England and later France when the British were defeated. It was then that he discovered the insulating properties that egg whites possessed when whipped. It is so effective that a meringue coating can allow something frozen (like ice cream) to be baked and still stay solid. He is credited with creating a dessert called Omelette Suprise-an appropriate name- because if you served me ice cream in toasted egg whites when I ordered an “omelette,” I would definitely be surprised. 

The “Omelette Suprise” was probably the source of inspiration for the dish now known as Baked Alaska. This towering confection of cloudy meringue, sweet ice cream, and dense cake has been wowing diners at Delmonico’s in New York since 1867, where Chef Charles Ranhofer was known to name menu items after famous people or events. He called his dessert “Alaska, Florida” after the acquisition of Alaska from Russia by the United States. 

Many Americans lamented the purchase and called the sale  “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Ice Box,” believing that they had been duped into buying a frozen wasteland. At the time both the dessert at Delmonico’s and the massive territory came with a hefty price tag: in today’s money, a Baked Alaska would set you back $40-the Alaska Purchase right around a cool $125 million. 

After gold was discovered in Alaska, few Americans questioned the wisdom of the deal. Some modern economists, however, claim that the cost born by the Federal Government in terms of infrastructure and upkeep of the state has brought the price tag up to a whopping 16 billion- not quite a bargain at that price. 

Perhaps the Alaska Purchase wasn’t such a sweet deal, but the “Alaska, Florida,” which eventually came to be known by the more familiar Baked Alaska would remain on the menu at Delmonico’s until they shuttered their doors in 2020. 

While most recipes I found claimed that a Baked Alaska was a simple dessert to prepare, my destroyed kitchen begs to differ. For the ambitious cooks, it is a delicious dessert, a perfect marriage of hot and cold, of dense and airy, and really does deserve its own day.