"BakedAlaska" news and stories

Each Thursday, we round up a selection of scrumptious links from our friends over at YumSugar. Here's what they've got cooking this week:

• Baked Alaska isn't as fancy-pants as it might seem, even though it's being served at the Governors Ball.
• Marcela Valladolid, star of the Food Network's Mexican Made Easy, wants you to give chilaquiles a screen test.
• Wolfgang, Alton and Lidia are tapped to host the culinary Oscars.
• What is your headlining cooking oil?
• Do you have a D-list herb?
• The home-cooking big wigs at "America's Test Kitchen" get set to release a video-game adaptation.
• The sidecar is a sparkling marquee cocktail.

Sir Benjamin Thompson, Count von Rumford (March 26, 1753 - August 21, 1814) was an American-born physicist best known for his work in the field of thermodynamics. A Loyalist during the Revolutionary War, he was rumored to be a spy for the British and ended up having to flee to Europe, where he spent most of the rest of his life.

But let's give the guy some slack, as he invented the pressure cooker, the kitchen range and the technique for making Baked Alaska (though the dish was not named until 1876 at Delmonico's in New York in honor of the newly acquired territory), as well as a double boiler and a drip coffee pot. Rumford Baking Powder is named after him, as it was invented by a professor in the endowed Rumford professorship in physics at Harvard.

Rumford demonstrated that beaten egg whites acted as a good insulator for ice cream. He called the resulting dish 'omelette surprise.' I'm gonna venture to say that 'Baked Alaska' has a nicer ring. So let's honor the Count today with some ice cream, sponge cake, and meringue. Here's a recipe.

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