It's the bombe!

Today we made sorbet and finished a bunch of the complex desserts we made yesterday. I wanted to show a picture of the crazy machine that we use to churn all of the frozen desserts. Here it is, with our raspberry lemonade sorbet. (That's probably 2-3 quarts of it. PS It was delicious).

She's cleaning out the machine -- usually it just looks like a typical soft serve machine, with the ice cream coming out of the bottom.

My group was in charge of service today, which involved two parts. The first was prepping and delivering 50 miniature Baked Alaskas for "carry-out" service so that students could eat them while watching a cooking demo. (I'll get to the second part later)

Baked Alaska = not my fav. It's ice cream encased in meringue, which is then set on fire. The mystery is that the meringue is warm but the ice cream remains frozen. I will let you in on the secret...it is because the outer meringue (whipped egg whites and sugar) is so thick -- like rubbery marshmallow -- that it insulates the ice cream. A feat of science, I guess. Personally, I prefer not to eat fire-retardant materials, but that's just me. Here are some photos of the process:

Torcing the Baked Alaskas... look at that big propane tank! Our mini Alaskas had two layers of ice cream - dark chocolate on the outer layer, then an almond ice cream in the center. I stuck a dried cherry in the middle of each blob of almond ice cream.

A close up of one of mine. Inside, it had two layers of ice cream - dark chocolate on the outer layer, then an almond ice cream in the center. I stuck a dried cherry in the middle of each blob of almond ice cream.

Here's a picture of a bunch of Baked Alaskas as I was rolling them upstairs for service. It's pretty cool to see how everyone piped the meringue differently. They are in a refrigerated case, hence the glare.

The second dessert that we finished was in NO WAY mini. We also made bombes, which are giant layered ice cream spheres. Think Carvel ice cream cake on steroids. We had a famous celebrity child chef visiting today (no joke, this kid made cookies for Oprah or something), and he looked like he'd died and gone to heaven as he attacked my Bombe. Side note, his mom told me that my chocolate ice cream was the best she'd ever tasted in her life. Booyah!

I wish I held a ruler or something next to it so you could see the scale. That knife is a giant bread slicing knife, for context:

The bombe (from the outside in) has toasted coconut, dark chocolate glaze, chocolate ice cream, banana ice cream, and hazelnut pate a bombe. The bottom is a chocolate sponge cake Goodness me!!

The second part of service today was giving ice cream cones to the faculty as they entered their weekly board meeting. Unfortunately, I was covered in chocolate glaze and one of my former teachers pointed this out loudly in front of the dean and the president. Luckily, I made a cheesy joke about my Bombe detonating on me. Here are some of the flavors that we served (we have a rolling ice cream case, like what you'd see in a shop! Pretty neat):

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Ice Cream

Pistachio Ice Cream

Mango Raspberry Frozen Yogurt

Key Lime Gelato with Graham Cracker Crumbs

Coffee Ice Cream with Almonds and White Chocolate.

I memorized this because I said this a million times. Getting the chance to actively serve food that I made was really fun! People are so appreciate to eat desserts... I forget this because every time I see a bowl of ice cream I go running in the other direction.

Time for bed because we have Friday class tomorrow!