It has taken me a while, but here is the recipe for my mother’s Glace au Four that I made for Anna & Ian’s Christmas dinner.
My mother has always made this dessert, also known as Baked Alaska, with an oat biscuit base, but it is commonly made with a sponge base here in the UK.
Most of the time I make my food shopping online with plenty of time, but this time I went to Sainsbury’s the weekend before Christmas when it was mayhem, and that is my excuse for buying the wrong oats. I prefer rolled oats for baking and grabbed the first bag I saw, and I didn’t notice that it was mixed with almonds, hazelnuts, cinnamon and raisins. I just removed the raisins and added some cardamom to get an even stronger Christmas feel.
I doubled the recipe as there were seven of us, but the below recipe is for four people. However, just double it if you need to.
Photos by Jenny Mills.
Glace au Four, serves 4
Biscuit base:
75 g butter
250 ml rolled oats
125 ml caster sugar
1 egg
1 tsp baking powder
1 tbsp plain flour
(for a Christmas touch, substitute some of the oats for almond slivers and hazelnut kernels as well as 1 tsp cinnamon and 1 tsp cardamom)
3 egg whites
75 ml caster sugar
100 g raspberries, frozen and thawed or fresh
1 litre vanilla icecream
Melt the butter and pour it over the oats. Mix flour and baking powder and add it to the oats. Then add eggs and sugar and stir to combine.
Spread the batter into a greased large tin. Bake in 175C for 20 minutes and leave to cool.
Turn the oven up to 250-275C or put the grill on high. Place the raspberries on the oat base. Beat the egg whites until foamy and add half the sugar. Beat until stiff peaks. Add the rest of the sugar and beat until very stiff peaks and until the meringue is glossy. Place the icecream on top of the berries and cover it with the meringue. Put it in the oven for 5 minutes or until golden brown on top. Serve immediately.
Scandelights 