What was all the fuss about?

It's that birthday week again here - 3 cakes in 5 days.  And I wanted something special for the first of them.  So, I somewhat rashly thought I'd try a Baked Alaska.  I'd totally forgotten about the GBBO hoo-ha until I started googling for recipes.  Panicked a little, but decided to plough on.

The online recipes varied wildly, so I mostly followed the advice in my trusty Joy of Cooking.  The first stage was to make my usual family chocolate cake, but in layers the night before.  Then when I got home from work at about 5.30, I covered a tray with foil, and put one of the layers on it.  I then stripped the cardboard off the tub of raspberry ripple icecream, sliced it up and put it in the centre of the cake, leaving a border around the edge.  The cake and ice cream then went back in the freezer, with some plasticwrap on it.  I whipped up 6 eggwhites, with some sugar, cream of tartar and vanilla, until they were stiff enough to hold a peak.  I think I over-whipped, as I was a bit stressed at this point. So while it looked nice in the bowl, the actual meringue on the cake lacked much in the way of curlicues.  But back in the freezer it went, just in time, before the ravening hordes arrived.  It could only have been in the freezer for an hour max, when I popped it out and into the hottest oven that I could generate.  I was aiming at 5 mins, but after 3 mins at 220+ C with fan assist, it was looking good, so I took it out.

This isn't going to win any style prizes, but boy did it taste good.  Definitely worth a try.