Guest Post: Bombe Alaska for the 100th post and Awards Giveaway

Throughout the journey of blogging, I am so please to learn so much from other people and also sharing some of my cooking that is loved by my family or new experience to my kitchen.  There are too many people to thanks for to show my appreciation, I am giving the awards to those that truly deserved the encouragement.

 First, I would like to thanks:
1. Spoon and Chopsticks to be my first follower
2. Peggy from My Fiance Like it, So It Must Be Good, to give the first comment
3. Jessica from Kitchen Belleicious to give comment on nearly every post since she starts following me
4. Elisabeth from Food and Thrift Finds to give me the awards
5. Anu from ANU's Healthy Kitchen for hosting monthly events that is fun to participate
6. Jane from Jane's Corner for me to learn making swiss roll, egg tart and chiffon cake that I always fail to do so.
7. Christine from Christine's Easy Recipe for her inspiration for me to start blogging and good luck with the publication of her first cookbook.
8. Julie from Tasty Treat, Vardhini from Zeasty Palatte, Hemalata from Helm's Kitchen, Purabi from Cosmopolitan Currymania and Priyas's Now Serving for all those delicious and healthy Indian dishes.
9. Yin from Yin's Homemade and Ping from Ping's Picking to let me knowing more about Malaysia Food so that I can surprise my husband with some of their Malaysian recipes.
10.  Christine from Christine's Panty of her interesting food histories and Ming from Ming's Food Corner of his scrumptious food critics.
11.  For my following bloggers: Angies from Angies Recipes, Veronica's My Catholic Kitchen, Food Glorious Food's My Personal Food Journal, Karen from Contemplations and Ruminations, Devilicious Chef's Foodlicious, Hannah's Eaternity and dada's flavors. Thanks you for supporting this blog, your blogs are unique and fantastic.

Also, to my subscribers, my new followers and everyone who have giving comments or visiting this blog, I'm giving you a sincere thank you.

I have just got another award from Elisabeth so I'm giving the Hundred Hearts and One Lovely Blog Awards to the following 12 bloggers, please grab one or two and pass it on.

1. Christine's Pantry
   
2. dada flavors
   
3. Eaternity
   
4. Foodilicious
   
5. Hema's Kitchen
   
6. Contemplations and Ruminations
   
7. My Personal Food Journal
   
8. Now Serving
   
9. ping's pickings
   
10. Spoon and Chopsticks
    
11. Tasty Treat
    
12. Zesty Palette
    

With the Cherry on Top Award, I'm giving it to the following 10 bloggers. Please pass it to another 10 bloggers.  To Elisabeth, I could not give you the same rewards again but I would like to give you a big big hug!

1. Angie's Recipes
   
2. Anu's Healthy Kitchen
   
3. Christine's Recipes
   
4. Cosmopolitan Currymania
   
5. Jane's Corner
   
6. Kitchen Belleicious
   
7. Ming's Food Corner
   
8. My Fiance Likes It So It Must Be Good!
   
9. My Catholic Kitchen
   
10. Yin's Homemade
    

Now back to the cooking, my daughter has been writing an assignment on Bombe Alaska for her journalist schoolwork.  I made this for her birthday this year and we re-made it again for her assignment.  I'm inviting her to be my first guest post and hope you enjoy her article.

Bombe Alaska

The Bombe Alaska, also known as omelette a la norvégienne (Norwegian Omelette), is an ice-cream encased in meringue dessert.  It was original in France in the mid 19th century when a Chinese delegation was visiting Paris.  The Master-cook of the Chinese mission was staying at the Grand Hotel in 1866, and the French chef at the hotel, learned how to bake ice-cream in a pastry crust in the oven from the Chinese cook.  By putting the Bombe Alaska into the oven to cook the meringue, the egg whites mixture and the sponge act liked an insulator, preventing the ice-cream from melting in the oven, yet the heat cooks the meringue, leaving a lovely brown colour and soft, marshmallow texture of coating.  This recipe uses the blowtourch to cook the meringue resulting a quick and even browning of the meringue.  It serves 2-4 people.

Ingredients:

250g frozen raspberry

1/3 cup caster sugar

1 tsp lemon juice

sponge cake

vanilla ice-cream

For the meringue:

130g caster sugar

1 tsp glucose syrup

4 tbsp water

2 egg whites

2 x 400ml ramekins

rum or whisky for making the flame

Method:

1. Blend the raspberries with sugar in a "pulse" action in a blender until it is coarsely blended.  Add in some lemon juice.
2. Line the ramekins with glad wrap that is large enough to cover the top of the mould.
3. Cut sponge into rounds and small rectangles that fit the base and sides of the mould about 1.5cm thick.  Lay the base first and then the sides with the sponge overlapping a bit making sure there is no gap in between.
4. Fill 1/2 of the mould with raspberry puree and 1/2 with ice-cream.
5. Put the round piece of cake on tip to seal the ice-cream cake and cover it with glad wrap.  Repeat this process to make one more ice-cream cake.
6. Place them into the freezer for at least 1 hour.
7. For the meringue:  Using an electric mixer, whisk egg white until soft peaks form.  While it is beating, place 130g sugar, glucose and 4 tablespoons of water in a small saucepan.  Stir over low heat until sugar dissolves, then boil without stirring until syrup reach 120c on a thermometer.  It should be a thick runny syrup, if it is too hard add more water and vice versa.
8. With the motor running, slowly pour in sugar syrup down through the side and beat until meringue becomes stiff and shinny.
9. Lift the frozen ice-cream cake out of the mould onto a plate, upside down.  Discard the glad wrap.
10. Coat meringue around the cake, and use a blowtourch to go around the cake until the meringue turned lightly brown.  Repeat this process for the other.
11. Pour a little rum or whisky around the side and light it with matches.  Serve immediately.