The internet is full of fabulous facts about everything from current events to the history basket weaving and baked Alaska fun facts. As we research for our daily content on food trucks, food carts and street food, we stumble upon some items of knowledge that we just did not know.

We have decided when these fun facts pop up, that we would share them with our readers in our section titled “Did You Know?”

For today’s Did You Know we will look at Baked Alaska fun facts:

Baked Alaska Fun Facts: Baked Alaska is a dessert made of ice cream placed in a pie dish lined with slices of sponge cake and topped with meringue.

  • The dessert was developed by Benjamin Thompson. When experimenting with dessert techniques, he realized that while pastries would conduct the heat and protect a cold core, a layer of meringue would do so to an even greater degree.
  • What we commonly call Baked Alaska was dubbed as such by the famous Delmonico’s Restaurant in New York City in 1876 to celebrate Alaska’s annexation.
  • February 1st is National Baked Alaska Day.
  • Early versions of this dessert used pie crusts instead of meringue.
  • As part of its “Lick Global Warming” campaign, in 2005, Ben & Jerry’s protested the drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge by whipping up the world’s largest Baked Alaska. The dessert weighed 1,140 pounds and measure 4 feet tall and 4 feet around, with the help of 3,600 four-ounce scoops of Ben & Jerry’s Fossil Fuel ice cream, 90 pounds of cake and 150 pounds of marshmallow cream.
  • Quick Tip: Instead of baking it in the oven, a blowtorch can be used on the meringue.

Baked Alaska Fun Facts We Missed

Feel free to let us know about the baked Alaska fun facts we missed. If we can verify that the facts is just that, a fact, we will give the reader credit in the article.

Reference: Wikipedia article on Baked Alaska.

Find all of the National Food Holidays to spice up your food truck menu specials throughout the year.