Individual Chocolate-Raspberry Baked Alaskas (Page 872)

RECIPE #1201

• Date: Thursday, August 12, 2010 -- 10pm
• Location: East Lansing, MI
• Kitchen: Our House
• Dining Companion: Matty
• Recipe Rating: B+
  

This recipe came off the list generated by the random number generator. This recipe had three components: chocolate cake, raspberry ice cream, and meringue. I stared by making a rather fudgey chocolate cake. I cut the cake into pieces, which I fit into the bottom of some individual gratin dishes. I topped each cake piece with one scoop of raspberry ice cream, then froze the dishes until the ice cream was hard. I then made a meringue by beating egg whites, salt, and sugar until they formed stiff, glossy peaks (I used powdered egg whites for safety reasons). I mounded the meringue on top of the ice cream scoops, put the dishes on a baking sheet, and baked them in a hot oven until the meringue was golden brown. I think my meringue was a little too close to the top of the oven at first, so the meringue burnt a bit. I scraped off the burnt part, lowered the oven rack, and baked until the newly exposed meringue was golden. Worked like a charm! I liked this dish quite a bit. The chocolate cake, which was almost brownie-like in texture, was awesome! Yum! And the ice cream melted just the slightest amount when the dish was baked, which was great. I liked the meringue too but I thought there was a bit too much of it. With half as much meringue per dish I would have like this dessert better. As it was though, it was quite tasty!

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The recipe is here.

My special gentleman has been away for the last few days. When I came back from Wisconsin he stayed there and went up to a lake house on Lake Julia with some of our friends. So I drove back alone on Sunday, and came home to an empty house (well, not so empty now that we have the kittens!). It was my first time sleeping in our new house without my special gentleman. I was feeling fine about it -- we lived apart for three years so I am pretty used to sleeping by myself. And I was exhausted on Sunday night, so I fell asleep quite easily. However, the night turned out to not be as peaceful as I had hoped. I went to bed at midnight and woke up at 3am for no real reason. I was feeling pretty awake so I checked my email, etc, then went back to sleep 30 minutes later. I woke up again at 4am, this time because the carbon monoxide alarm was beeping. That was a little unsettling. Having never heard the carbon monoxide alarm go off I couldn't tell if it was alarming, or just telling me the batteries were low. Using the magic of the internet I tried to find a manual for it. After I failed to do so I realized that the necessary information was on the back of the detector. One beep every thirty seconds meant the batteries needed to be replaced.

Happy that I wasn't about to die of carbon monoxide poisoning, I headed downstairs to find some batteries. When I opened the battery compartment of the detector, however, I discovered that the batteries in it had leaked everywhere. And they were stuck. There was no way to stop the beeping without removing the batteries. And there was no way to remove the batteries without getting battery leakage all over my hands. Ugh. After a pretty serious struggle I got the batteries out and replaced them with shiny new ones. Then I spent some time rinsing all the battery leakage off my hands. By the time I went back to bed it was almost 5am. When my alarm went off around 7am to wake me up for a day of orientation, I was not super happy.

On the upside, nights two and three being home alone went much more smoothly than night one! And my special gentleman comes home tonight. Since I drove the car home on Sunday, he is taking the ferry across Lake Michigan, and I will pick him up in Muskegon, Michigan tonight. I am looking forward to having him home!