Heston Blumenthal: In Search of Perfection

5. Baked Alaska

Heston took on a 1970s dessert trolley classic, baked Alaska. His research started at Delmonico's restaurant in New York City, said to be where this dessert was invented. Next his obsession with combining hot and cold in the same dish led him to the work of food scientist Nicolas Kurti, who inspired Peter Barham at Bristol University. Heston and Peter tried to create a hot jam centre - a kind of reversed baked Alaska - to interesting effect. The next challenge was the meringue. The key to perfecting this was finding the type of egg that will give the ultimate insulation for the ice cream inside, so it was back to the lab for some more experiments