The baked Alaska is made with a flan base covered with ice cream around which meringue is heaped. It is cooked very rapidly, to cook the meringue without melting the ice cream. Created at Delmonicos to commemorate the purchase of Alaska by the United States. Based on the French dish omelette norvégienne. I worked with a woman in 1971 whose husband's boss came to dinner and she made baked Alaska to round off the meal. She brought it triumphantly from the kitchen and set it down in front of him. She then reached for a knife and plunged it into the interior. The ice cream erupted through the incision, all over the boss. So beware when you come to serve it!