Lu Xinyi knew that Han Yixin had an advantage over her and wasn’t surprised when she lost the first round of the cooking battle. She had to admit though that she was excited to see more from Han Yixin. That caramelized tower of cream puffs was really difficult to make, ah!
Making a croquembouche takes several steps, but it wasn’t as difficult as it looks if one had enough experience. To be honest, Lu Xinyi found making the choux pastry puffs to be the most difficult part, the rest was incredibly fun!
Once the choux pastry puffs were made and filled, they were stacked together with a caramel sauce. The caramel acted like glue and allows the chef to build layers and layers of puffs. With Han Yixin’s experience, she easily stacked these puffs and gave it a nice presentation.
She would slap someone who’d dare to say it was easy and not complicated to make. Lu Xinyi even got a minor burn from it. Checking her injury, Lu Xinyi was glad that it wasn’t a serious one. One should really be careful when touching or working with heat.
Since the hardest dessert was already finished, she was confident to move on the second dessert of the day, her baked alaska.
Compared to croquembouche, baked alaska was an easy dessert to make; and it’s quite versatile. The cake and ice cream could be cut or molded in a variety of shapes and sizes. One could make small, individual baked Alaska desserts or one large cake.
Most people didn’t care what it took to make desserts, they just want them. However, aside from chocolate chip cookies and brownies, a lot of those desserts people shove into their mouths without a second thought took a lot of work to make; and that was a serious understatement.
Just like the word ‘souffle’ was enough to instill fear in the most experienced cooks. It wasn’t that this dessert took a long time to make, but it’s delicate. Temperamental, too!
Most favorite desserts took multiple steps to make, some take hours—even days, and then there are the ones that have to be intentionally—and very carefully—set on fire just before serving, just like the baked alaska.
Lu Xinyi took the ice cream dome out of the freezer and brushed some strawberry jam over the sponge cake. She then placed the sponge cake over the ice cream dome before returning it into the freezer.
For the last part of her baked alaska, Lu Xinyi made her meringue. She went with a Swiss meringue because it was more stable and less grainy than a regular French meringue. Once the meringue was ready, it was time for her to frost and decorate the cake.
Lu Xinyi checked the ice cream dome with a sponge cake on her freezer, making sure it was firm enough to work on. She flipped it upside down with the ice cream dome on top and slapped that marshmallow-like goodness, which was the meringue all over the ice cream dome.
To finish everything, Lu Xinyi doused her baked alaska with alcohol and lit the d.a.m.n thing on fire using a kitchen blowtorch. It was a sight to behold. A sweet dessert was lit up with fire; the blue flames devoured it whole.
“Ohh… that looks so fancy. Han Yixin chose the traditionally go-to for achieving the ‘baked’ aspect of the baked alaska by putting it in an oven while Lu Xinyi chose to use the blowtorch to caramelize her meringue,” the old man on the audience commented.
“Would Lu Xinyi’s dessert will be alright after that?”
“By the way, old man, why doesn’t the ice cream inside a baked alaska melt even it was lit on fire or baked inside the oven?”
Before the old man could explain the reason behind it, Han Yixin and Lu Xinyi served their baked alaska at the same time. Using two different approaches to making the dessert, the spectators wondered which one would be deemed better than the other.
The judges cut Han Yixin’s baked alaska into three. Inside, lavender-colored ice cream was revealed. It was really eye-catching especially those who had a sweet tooth. The three judges tasted the baked alaska but didn’t comment. They only tasted it twice before they moved to Lu Xinyi’s baked Alaska.
When they cut the dessert, three layers of ice cream were revealed to the public: vanilla ice cream, raspberry sorbet and chocolate ice cream on top of a chocolate sponge cake. Since they were curious about what Lu Xinyi did to her baked alaska, the three judges couldn’t help but ask.
Earlier, they ask Han Yixin to explain her croquembouche; now, it was Lu Xinyi’s turn to explain her baked alaska.
“I made a three-layer version with three different flavors of ice cream: vanilla, chocolate, and raspberry sorbet. Unlike croquembouche, this isn’t my first time making a baked alaska. My hus—boyfriend likes to try new desserts, and he asked me to try to make him one.” Lu Xinyi mentally slapped herself. Ah, fortunately, she caught on her mistake.
“Since there is no particular rule on how many flavors of ice cream I could use, I chose the three that complemented each other but kept in mind to go for flavors that are less sweet or slightly tart because the meringue is already pretty sweet.
The second thing was the cake. I baked a sheet of chocolate sponge cake. It is light but dense enough to keep the ice cream from melting too much. The chocolate sponge cake I made is also less sweet, which is perfect with the ice cream and meringue.”
‘And with all the leftover cake sc.r.a.ps, it was perfect! I can have an early cake party for myself while cooking. Hahahaha!’ She laughed mentally, not daring to share these words with the judges.
“What about the meringue you used? You chose the Swiss meringue over the French one,” one of the judges asked as they continued to eat Lu Xinyi’s baked alaska.
“It’s because Swiss meringue is firm and slightly denser than the other types of meringue. It is also less grainy which added to its favorable factor.”
“So Miss Lu, can you tell us why the ice cream inside a baked alaska doesn’t melt even if one has to bake it?” Chef Feng tested Lu Xinyi again. He wondered how much talent this amateur cook had.
“Chef Feng, it all depends on the temperature of the ice cream used for this dessert. This cla.s.sic dessert defies the laws of thermodynamics. The higher the temperature of the ice cream, the easier for it to reach its melting point a lot quicker. It is important to keep the ice cream as cold as possible while doing the dome.” Lu Xinyi lifted a finger, explaining in a matter-of-fact tone. “If one can also keep the meringue layer thick enough, one should be able to make a dessert with a nicely caramelized meringue on the outside and delicious frozen ice cream on the inside.”