good afternoon ladies and gentlemen I'm John this is many a true note and welcome to our second birthday special I know two years two years old amazing last time this time last year when we did this sort of celebration we were I think it was it was it was about 6,000 subscribers 6,000 50:53 the time recording he'll probably be 54 by the time this goes out after ly amazing and obviously as some of you will remember last year when we did the birthday special we made a cake and that's fine that was good that went very very well indeed click on the car on screen if you've never seen that by the way but this year this year we couldn't just make a cake we couldn't just make a cake that would be way way too easy so instead instead I looked up what is the most difficult dessert to make in the world and I found a dessert I'm going to be trying to make apparently credibly complex dessert Baked Alaska now this is a fact incredibly difficult so obviously I'm going to be requiring some help from this so instead I've decided I have recruited Claire to come in and help me today so okay Claire Claire you're on your own for this one right so some handsy recipes for bait Alaska say that you should start with a pre-prepared a base or like pre-prepared ice cream I'm not going to do any of that I'm going to make everything everything from scratch there is going to be freshly made base freshly made ice cream and freshly made meringue for those of you who do not know a baked Alaska is a pastry base with ice cream in it and a meringue topping and I'm going to make every single one of those from scratch oh yes so the problem with Baked Alaska is it takes absolutely bloody ages so I'm gonna need to try and speed this up a little bit by skipping certain nodular nasarah steps like measuring volume I'm just going to be estimating because that will be faster because this thing takes bloody forever so I've got this double cream that 600 milliliters I need about half of that about half of its half fish and then I got some milk again you'd like half a pint of that two points so about a quarter quarter issuances Sabaton a bit more a bit more a bit more a bit more a bit more bit submit it's all dairy so dairy it's fine okay next it calls for a vanilla pod but I don't know what that is and I don't have one zort I've got instead is I've got some vanilla extract so I'm just gonna put some of that in there not got much but how much you need there that that'll do whatever that much that will do I just added that much right it doesn't actually say whisk this or anything so I'm just gonna swish it for a bit there we go that's probably next and now that apparently gets heated for like until it's almost boiling which is a really unhelpful instruction because how am I supposed to know it's almost boiling and so it's boiled in which case it's too late but whatever I'm good boy oh no no not I'm not going to boil it okay there's steam and little bubbles coming from around the outside I'm going to call back done let me say that's done now so now that just gets put to one side to just be over there I guess it just has to cool for a bit okay well that's doing that I now have to create the base that's going to be like the cake it's in actually the Alaska so while that's all cooling so 125 grams of butter right done and it says that needs to be creamed until soft which you use like a food mixer for but Claire tells me I'm not allowed to touch her food mixer because she doesn't trust me not to break it which is sensible so we'll find some other way of creaming this butter now I don't know if this is right but this seems like a good way so yeah yeah there we go I have we go this is this is this is yeah I think that's actually works surprisingly well and then into that we add about a quarter of this sugar this is 500 grams I 125 so about a quarter line is that I was about four bit more there we go that'll probably do now next I've got to beat this mixture obviously some of you may recall from previous video um when I last made a cake about a year ago I did break Clare's whisk and you never quite forgave me for that actually but don't worry I have bought a new whisk especially that you need its debut today and I'm going to be honest it looked slightly larger when I actually um when I actually uh bought it but that's fine it'll still do the job it's justice you know never judge a man by the size of his waist and tell you what little whisk is getting the job done we're got an actually quite good-looking mixture I think ah that's perfect question that is the problem is about half the mixture is now inside the whisk curtain are you don't you get it out just like they do on MasterChef okay there we go beautiful now next I'm gonna make this a chocolate base by adding in some melted chocolate and I have gone for the flippin good stuff extra dark chocolate and orange and I think this this is going to be nice I'm using the best ingredient I'm like an army to share with the best troops the recipe says to melt this chocolate by putting it in a bowl above a pan of simmering water to mount which is bloody ridiculous I swear it's like they don't want people to cook or something two minutes later we got ourselves melted chocolate instead it was going to half an hour I have saved so much time ready okay now we just added the most chocolate out okay right sorry I forgot that was hot it just came out the microwave using a towel or oven gloves we just add that into the thing the chocolate goes in and then that just gets beaten in to Oh way too much it feels like it's very liquid for the amount of actual it feels like there's a huge amount of chocolate on let me just check my measurements oh it's because I haven't added the flour yet right let's just add some flour it says sift it but it looks it looks pretty fine there's not that much wrong with that it also says folding the flour but I don't know what that means so I'm just going to beat but like gently gently beat it's going to be fine see see this is now starting to feel a bit more like a cake mixture and this is fine this is the bit we should absolutely nail we made a cake last year and it was brilliant yeah fine spot time it's fine me and my tiny whisk we will be able to handle anything me in the tiny whisk there is nothing we cannot do okay I feel like that that's actually pretty good ready to go work yeah I thought that's pretty good ready to go cake batter now next step it says is to put this into a prepared cake tin it doesn't actually say how to prepare a cake tin Claire help me get a hutch prepare a cake tin also where are the cake turns right well cover the Keating's which one this one okay Claire showed up and she showed me where the baking tins are and also what a baking tin is and also what baking paper is or whatever it was called I think yes that and that I stick it to the baking tin with butter so so that that's how that is okay I'm gonna be honest it doesn't actually look like a huge amount of cake to me but that's what we got I've realized the small problem I may run into which is I'm blending two recipes here one of which taught me how to make the ice cream one of which taught me how to make the cake base and I didn't check that the size of the Baked Alaska that was perfect producing was the same which could be part of the problem here I mean making two different sized Alaska's alright anyway this goes in the oven 180 degrees C for 20-25 minutes or some amount of time close to that okay well that's in the oven that means we can turn our attention back to the ice cream so the mixture in heat earlier is now done first things first as I'm going to need three egg yolks that's pretty simple Things Considered that's nice okay oh that was a gateway that's the opposite of that's the that's the white not the jack hang on hang on hang on hang on I've got my dear got an idea yolk goes in what used to be the flour thing and the white can go in I'm gonna run out of bowls ooh really actually don't have that many bowls but that's fine this is going to be fine just do that yeah why break it open white white white white white and Joe there we go almost better okay now into that add in a hundred ish grams of sugar that's what about 400 is right quarter what's left bit more yeah yeah that's probably ish I've run out of the whisk obviously the whisk gots other stuff on it so I'm just gonna have to use a fork for this but a fort worked fine last time so now we've just got sugar and egg yolk it says to do this until it's pale thickened the problem is it's kind of not looking particularly pale to me looking very very orange in fact let me just check out with deputy supposed to use yolks yeah it says yolks definitely says yolks all right just keep going then besides I may not put enough sugar cuz sure is white and egg yolks arms so I'm going a bit more sugar that that will help there we go it's more pale than it was anyway let's just say that it's more power than it was okay now it says about quarter of this cream mixture I made earlier now goes in quarter ition alright spawn wasn't a quarter never mind never mind it was it was not the whole lot was not the whole lot now I need to whisk this in really quite slowly because this isn't a large bowl and while that's happening the remaining cream mixture has to go and be reheated back up to max this time actually needs to boil so I'm civil taenia sleeve boiling the rest of this cream mixture okay the problem is it doesn't say what color or consistency this egg mixture is supposed to be when I'm done whisking so we'll shoot that's done it seems pretty clear and all mixed together so it's all mixed together that's fine meanwhile the rest of cream mixture that has indeed boiled hang on see see that's totally boiling over there so I'm going to move this into this pan because then I've actually got more space so I'm going to move it into this pan which I'll be using in a second anyway right so now now right now now this is this is the boiled cream mixture and this is the the egg and most of the growth some of the cream mixture so now some of this just goes in here for some reason I don't even bloody know and we mix them together so now that now that also gets whisked next time you go to an ice cream parlor say thank you to the bloke because this is a bloody page so you make ice cream so bloody up nice to see them smell come right I know it doesn't smell gray I'm not getting vanilla so much as like a like scrambled egg actually it kind of smells more like scrambled egg than vanilla ice cream so not not a hundred percent on this right I've got a problem I've just checked the next steps of the ingredient and apparently the next step is that um I'm supposed to leave this in a fridge overnight then put it into my ice cream maker in the morning there were a few problems first which is I need to do this today the second of which is I don't have an ice cream maker so you know problems right about I think I've got a solution tada there we go I've gone out and I've bought some ice cream um and even better this is honeycomb dairy ice cream and it's made with fresh whole milk and clotted cream in Cornwall sure so that's good call obviously everyone knows about my local Cornwall so yes we've got that now this I feel is safer than the slightly suspect scrambled egg mixture so but but we're still gonna make the cake and we're still going to make our own meringue it's just the ice cream it hasn't quite worked probably should have read the instructions before it began actually good night okay the cake after 25 minutes is now ready to come out of the oven so we have our cake base it looks okay it's a little bit slimmer than I was expecting but I guess we'll have to make do Clare's also draw my attention to the fact that we own this thing which is some form of cake stand which I think could be quite useful use that in a minute but first they have to get the cake out of its thing luckily we've got like a really good cake tip here which we can double do that and then just open the cake tin so now we can just open the my angle one I don't know if another way just opens a bit right okay okay okay lift the cake lift these bits off that bit comes away alright many our cake tins works we go along here a bit can slide out alright now we just need to get this bit and this is problem don't I get this offer oh this oh oh that's crap that's a crack that's that's a crack oh I can't help me with this best class doing something with our hair um no even use a knife we need a knife to to get under the cake and lift the cake I see is it oh oh oh oh no that cake is clearly breaking apart um I'm just gonna let this set let this cake set like this now for a bit that's fine this cake can just set here for like a bit of time once it's cooled it will be fine it'll be fine I'm just going to put that back there and that's going to be okay now while that's cooling at the back there we've got Morpheus again obligations you've got to now make the meringue that's going to go on top of the ice cream it's going to go on top of the cake base so this time I need three egg whites which I could have saved from earlier when I got the egg you oh wow nevermind more eggs we need more eggs whisking you would just use more eggs it'll be fine now this time we're keeping just the whites keeping just the white and we're getting rid of the yolk okay okay next it says now whisk the egg whites just the egg whites on the rice whisk those until they form soft peaks when the whisk is removed why does anything else it specifically says not to have added the sugar yet this is what it says I feel like I'm just stirring yellow water here but all right I'll go for it I mean when it says soft peaks I do this I'm like like that it kind of is that a soft peak is that a peak or is it because it's not standing I don't know if that's a I'm gonna keep going for a couple of minutes just to see if it does one I'm going to assume that this is the fact it does this is good enough and move on so um 200 grams of sugar home I should mention 30 grams of sugar is 7 ounces if you're a time traveler from the distant past and those huge measurements that don't make any sense that's about half of what I've got here that's a bit more that's a bit there's probably fine so now we just mix the egg whites and this together I'm going to keep going until they form hard peaks as we did so well with the soft peaks and now we just need to do this with hard peaks my shooing means like I do this it like holds it it's like hold its shape sugar there's a bit more sure why not that's probably that's probably fine the mixtures definitely thickening which is what I want it to do so that's a good sign right I've been doing this for a few minutes now and I'm going to be honest it doesn't seem to be making much progress it's definitely not forming anything related to a stiff peak it's not even moving in the direction of a stiff peak and it's not even really a soft peak yet which is kind of unfortunate um right the instructions say they need to do this until the mixture is clearly glossy and saty satiny as in like as in like the material sati to your sense even I don't know I wanna hang but you have anything that's made out of Saturn I've got the mixture here and I've got this hankerchief which is made of Saturn I'm gonna be honest they don't look desperately similar yet mean with the froth on top yes but when you remove the froth this is Saturn and that's a yellow liquid so let's + step back into the kitchen lead to us - well basically watch me used to take notes I still can't be trusted but probably admitted me pretending that this is going to work and it's not going to work the manual way is a fallout for Lords traitor I'm going to be disappointed this is apparently what a soft peak looks like we're gonna start adding in sugar that out yeah the show went off time sugar fat up right you can probably hear the K mixer son in the background keeping the meringue going well that's happening however it's time to actually assemble the cake all the bids have to assemble and whatever they all the feds I mean all the bits that survived so I've got the delicious ice cream that I got from a supermarket here but it's really good stuff so it's fine so I'm going to do is I just need to cut that up into bits so I'm using about half a liter a really nice quality ice cream here about half a liter of it it's going to be great so I've got all this ice cream I'm just gonna I'm just going to go and cut it up into little bits put them on and then kind of let it just melt a little bit I need it to be loose enough the little fit together at the end at the end of the day it'll all be fine I'm running out of implements by the way which is why I'm now using a bread knife the spreading ice cream so I don't really have much else that's left the puddle look kind of out of everything else so that's the ice cream just going to smooth it out now right so you can probably hear um the sound of the cakes is no longer there that is because it is done we have got what clearly looks like a meringue it's kind of meringue shaped you can see it's got Peaks it's actually got pizza exact as requested meanwhile our cake faces here our ice cream is slightly melted so it's spread out sorry I've broken a bit of the side of the cake but that's fine I can patch that with meringue so now I'll need to do is I just need to get meringue all over this it just needs to go in my little peaks and troughs all over this cake and we have to completely coat the whole thing right down to the baking tray yet we need to actually cover up the base right down to the baking tray no ice cream expose because this thing is about to go in the oven again it's about the punch as you probably noted it has ice cream in it please try to me as a terrible idea I'm going to use a small spoon for the small adjustments to make sure that everything is as it should be because I'm worried that I need to completely cover up everything with like and it says to do it in like peaks and troughs but to be honest I probably shouldn't worry too much about the artistry you notice I've also slid on the cake base onto a single baking tray that has like no lip on it so when I do get this back at the oven I'll be able to get out so I'm slowly worried about the integrity of my cake base it is like at the edge of falling apart definitely okay so that's it that is the Baked Alaska in its precooked format the cooked base then the ice cream within it and then covering up the ice cream entirely this layer of meringue that goes right down to the bottom no ice cream should be exposed to them about to put this in the oven at 220 degrees C which sounds like madness and it is madness but let's let's just do that anyway shall we there she is in the oven right Godspeed you magnificent bastard look at the devastation that I have wrought hope this works by the way because I don't have enough ingredients to give another shot at this okay you can see the very first bits of brownies on top here there we are about 30 seconds out from pulling this bastard out of the oven 30 seconds alright she's ready to come she is totally ready we're gonna get around now she's gone brown I don't see any huge ridiculous signs of leakage there's no like ice cream seeping out from her that's a really good sign right serving plates needs to be moved straight on to that if she can baby sneaker get her off and on to the serving plate kind of working it hasn't collapsed it has not that bit has but the rest of it hasn't the rest of it has not collapsed okay I think we're I think we've got it I think we've done Lafitte that actually feels like more ladies and gentlemen ladies and gentlemen I present to you not actually leaking that much the many true note second anniversary Baked Alaska the hardest dessert in the world term a sad are obviously very important that we try this thing let's get a slice let's get a slice in it actually is cutting which is great news which is great news let's just get slice this out yeah okay this is what it looks like it's meringue ice cream and a chocolate cake base there we are just over loopsy of that so yeah you've got the chocolate cake bases holding together you can see you've got the icy now you've got the meringue as well lovely writing and I've the fun one of the first taste now are the first taste of this so this works out that's actually quite nice that's actually edible that's that's amazing Graham's onto stodgy ice cream taste nice flavor come true location is correct Rashi not a bad Baked Alaska but where aren't you get a good thing okay I've got Claire here for a second opinion Claire what are you thinking of the Baked Alaska good Sam that's not bad that's actually it's held together the meringue is actually meringue where you go doing the maze good yeah magnificent you see you see someone who actually baby knows what they're doing is commented no one lies confirm the middle though all right in the middle hasn't melted too much I think it's actually worked together quite well I actually made a Baked Alaska I was thinking this was going to be horrendous failure I was kind of shearing in fact well the proof as they say is in the pudding or the pudding is in the if I forget how that idiom goes but Claire has taken a big second slice which i think is pretty conclusive proof the Baked Alaska is actually okay and I will have another slice of this as well oh my goodness it's actually I'm I'm so pleased look look at this magnificent thing it's bit doing its bit liquid but it's ice cream in the oven for goodness sake it's going to be but there we go ladies and gentlemen that was just another cooking with John video I know I literally I've only done three of these the results I've cake and now there's yet it seems to be one that is mysteriously regularly requested people want more cooking with John so I don't know let me know if you want even more cooking with John and maybe I'll try and make this like a monthly or quarterly or something something something event but yes for the moment for the moment ah two years - it feels like so much longer in some ways if in some ways it feels like that was just yesterday that I just started this off and it feels kind of really surreal it's kind of got as big as it has it sometimes it feels like I've been just doing this forever it just feels like such a natural part of my life now it's such a a weird weird thing thank you this is this is this is kind of the time the year especially where I do just feel very very thankful so thank you everyone who's hung around people who have been here from the very beginning people who've you know joined more recently unloved you all and love you on is wonderful this is a wonderful thing for me to do a wonderful enjoyable part of my life now I'm just thank you to everyone for hanging around these past two years and here's to here's to many more I'm already already starting to think about what I can do for the first anniversary quite frankly so uh who knows and maybe maybe we'll do more cooking with John before that point but but that is that is for the future and in the meantime as always thank you very much for watching thank you very much for listening I've been John's has been many a true nerd and this has been two years of many a true note celebrated with apparently the hardest dessert in the world to make which we have done spectacularly well I do say so myself Baked Alaska thank you very much and goodbye