A few months back, we blogged about making a dessert called Baked Alyeska. We were inspired by a feature in the Alaska Dispatch by Suzanna Caldwell. She wrote a great column with a detailed description of the dish as made by the extraordinary pastry chef at Alyeska Resort, Chef Scott Fausz.
Making Baked Alyeska at home was pretty involved, but we thought our version came out well. As a part of our victory lap, we sent the Dispatch our blog and thanked Suzanna for her article–figuring that our email would find its way into a newsroom spam filter.
Much to my surprise, a few weeks later I got a really nice email from Chef Scott Fausz, who had been forwarded our blog by Suzanna Caldwell. He offered up a few suggestions on making the meringue and then generously invited us to stop by his kitchen at Alyeska the next time we headed north.
Flash forward to this week, when we found ourselves passing by Alyeska Resort on our way to a wedding for close friends in Homer. Chef Fausz graciously hosted us and gave us a full tour of his kitchen, spending nearly an hour and giving advice on how to make a “northern lights” decoration as well as how and where to best enjoy the (actual) northern lights.
Alyeska makes more than 5,000 of these desserts a year, so he might just have this recipe down. He also shared with us that he had told the Dispatch that “there’s no way anybody is going to actually try to make this, as it’s way too complicated.”
It was great to have a chance to see behind the scenes and to get advice from a professional. We learned about new (to us) ingredients like luster dust, meringue powder, and isomalt, got a bunch of recipe ideas, and we swapped stories of various travels across the state.
We followed our visit with a stop into the Aurora Bar and Grill, one of three restaurants at the resort that feature Chef Fausz’s amazing desserts. One bite of the Baked Alyeska and it was clear that there’s a big difference between pastry chefs and Souzzchefs. The dish was light, full of textures, and just fabulous. It was plated with raspberry, chocolate shavings, and of course a northern lights decoration on top.
Souzz and I don’t usually spend a lot of time at resorts in our travels, but we’ll be back to Alyeska for sure. And as for our chance to meet Chef Fausz and tour the kitchen, I think we need Suzanna Caldwell to write articles about all of our favorite recipes from Alaska.
So cool!!! We went right by Alyeska on the train and our friends from the cruise stayed there for a few days post cruise! You always have thr best blogs!
Thanks for reading, and can’t wait to swap notes on our trips. Sounds like you all had an awesome adventure!
OK, funnest. blog. post. ever.
You made this up, right? Too good, too rich, and too well-photographed. Nicely done.
Thanks for reading! It was a really fun opportunity, puts the pressure on for our next dish!