Baked Alaska has always been flambeed with a torch. The dessert that it originated from, Omelette Norwegge was broiled to turn the meringue brown.

@@lynnie0524 In all the recipes in vintage cookbooks I've read, Baked Alaska is baked in an oven

@@marylist1236 According to the history of the dish, the chef that created it made it to be flambeed, but perhaps, since the average person didn't have a torch handy years ago, it was done like the original recipe. But you can look up the very history of the dish online and see how it came to be, and the way the inventing chef intended it to be made. It's always made using a torch in a restaurant, since that's the authentic way.

​@@lynnie0524Well, I just googled it, and it said "the classic" is baked in an oven set at its highest temperature, for about five minutes to achieve the browned appearance, torching, and flambeeing were just options

@@marylist1236 It CAN be made in the oven, but the creator of the dish flambeed it to differentiate it from the Omelette Norwegge. The whole point of changing the process was the new way of finishing it, with the torch. So, basically, anyone who makes it in the oven is essentially making Omelette Norwegge. From NPR, "Baked Alaska: A Creation Shrouded in Mystery" - "On March 30, 1867, for a mere $7.2 million - about two cents per acre - the U.S. bought land from Russia that would eventually make Alaska its 49th state, gaining a delicious fringe benefit in the process: Baked Alaska. No, this igloo-shaped dessert - cake and ice cream shrouded in toasted meringue - didn't come from the icy north, but its name was inspired by the land deal. In fact, the treat's true roots date back to the turn of the 18th century, when American-born scientist Sir Benjamin Thompson (aka Count Rumford, a title he gained for his loyalty to the crown during the American Revolution) - whose inventions included a kitchen range and a double boiler - made a discovery about egg whites. Rumford realized that the air bubbles inside whipped egg whites made meringue a great insulator. "That's really why the Baked Alaska works," says Libby "O'Connell, the History Channel's chief historian and author of The American Plate. "The meringue insulates the ice cream from heat." By the 1830s, this culinary revelation had inspired French chefs to create a dessert called the "Omelette Norwegge." This predecessor of Baked Alaska consisted of layers of cake and ice cream covered in meringue, then broiled. The French named this elaborate treat in reference to its own frigid territory to the north - Norway. So how did the "Omelette Norwegge" become embroiled with the Alaska purchase? Charles Ranhofer, an expat Parisian pastry chef at the legendary Delmonico's restaurant in New York City, was renowned for dishes doubling as cultural commentary - Peach Pudding à la [President Grover] Cleveland or Sarah Potatoes after actress Sarah Bernhardt, for example. In 1867, Ranhofer made a quip through his pastry that the world would never forget. Secretary of State William's Seward's acquisition of a faraway tundra drew no shortage of criticism and ridicule. Ranhofer, who likely encountered the "Omelette Norwegge" in his French training, jumped on the bandwagon with a dessert he dubbed "Alaska, Florida" - a reference to the temperature contrast between ice cream and toasted meringue. The original version consisted of banana ice cream, walnut spice cake and meringue torched to a golden brown. While making Baked Alaska today is much easier because of modern conveniences such as electric mixers and blowtorches, it was once an incredibly opulent dish, requiring a full kitchen staff and a significant amount of time. And it was also exotic, because it contained expensive bananas from Central America.”

i know right the pink snowball cake is still a thing today and is even sold on amazon lol so maybe the taste is different but its there along with others on this list