My dad doesn’t consider any meal complete without dessert, often fruit or Jell-O, but with his favorite finale being a cold bowl of ice cream.

Sunday, July 16 is designated as National Ice Cream Day, which is always observed on the third Sunday of July.

Open for one year, the Museum of Ice Cream (MOIC) location, in what was once our beloved Chicago Tribune Tower along Michigan Avenue in Chicago is celebrating with guests for an invitation to explore the fun and delicious interactive environment, which co-founder Manish Vorah tells me “has created a global community through the universal language of ice cream.”

Teamed with brands like Friendly’s, Dove Ice Cream and Ida’s Artisan Ice Cream, MOIC is hosting a similar sweet observance at the other global ice cream connected museum properties in New York, Austin and Singapore.

Since launching in 2016, MOIC brands itself as the foremost authority on all things ice cream,

The Chicago location in Pioneer Court at 401 N Michigan Ave. is hosting Sunday July 16 fun from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. including sporting a “pop-up sprinkle pool” in Pioneer Court.

The concept for the Museum of Ice Cream was founded by Figure8, a global lifestyle brand recognized for designing award-winning, multisensory experiential developments. To date, the “cool museum” has welcomed millions of visitors to its fully immersive, interactive spaces designed to inspire imagination and play, and according to co-founder Manish Vorah, who was a morning guest on my WJOB radio show last week, “to help us to rediscover the kid in us all.”

To add to the festivities, the museum locations are hosting a special giveaway for the chance to win what is billed as the “Ultimate Ice Cream Party.”

Guests have the opportunity for a “cone-nection cube” to be assigned different tasks to learn about the other visitors. Among the challenges is a task “to have a compliment battle with a cone-panion,” by finding someone who shares the same ice cream flavor as one another, for the chance to make an introduction to a stranger by use of only an ice cream flavor name. A golden ticket is then issued to those who complete the challenge. One winner will then be selected from each location to receive the Ultimate Ice Cream Party for themselves and up to 20 guests, including free admission, fun activities and free ice cream from the tasting stations.

For more information about Museum of Ice Cream’s National Ice Cream Day activations, visit www.museumoficecream.com.

Of all my published columns and cookbooks, I’ve never featured a recipe for the ice cream retro dessert that is the elegant favorite of chilly and toasted baked Alaska.

Legend has it that Thomas Jefferson is credited for creating the idea of serving ice cream topped with a lightly toasted meringue. Our third president was hailed as a gourmet who loved to cook.

By the late 1800s, baked Alaska was a famous dessert served at elegant Delmonico’s restaurant in New York City named as the “Alaska-Florida” which represented the dessert’s duel cold and hot qualities and the intriguing taste contrast.

It was then culinary great and author Fannie Farmer, who died in 1915, who first used the name “baked Alaska” to describe the same dessert when she published the recipe for it in her cookbook. By the 1960s and 1970s, baked Alaska, doused in cognac and set aflame when served, became the standard in the elegant floating dining rooms on cruise ships, prized for the theatrical pomp and circumstance associated when serving it.

My first time trying baked Alaska was 30 years ago under the glistening chandeliers of the Martinique Restaurant at Drury Lane Dinner Theatre in Evergreen Park, Illinois, now only a memory since it closed in 2004, but I’ve been won over ever since for this layered dessert special occasion treat.

Columnist Philip Potempa has published four cookbooks and is the director of marketing at Theatre at the Center. He can be reached at pmpotempa@comhs.org or mail your questions: From the Farm, PO Box 68, San Pierre, Ind. 46374.

Phil’s baked Alaska

Makes 10-12 serving slices

1/2 gallon Neapolitan Ice Cream

1 yellow cake mix

3 eggs

1/3 cup oil

1 1/4 cups water

6 egg whites

1/4 cup white granulated sugar

Pinch of cream of tartar

1 cup cognac

Directions:

1. Mix cake batter according to directions and pour into a large jelly roll pan. Bake cake per instructions, adjusting baking time as needed for using the varied cake pan. Remove cake from oven and allow to cool.

2. Slice cold from freezer ice cream in slightly less than 1/2 inch slabs and arrange to cover top of cake. Cover dessert with plastic wrap and place in freezer while making meringue.

3. In a large chilled bowl, use an electric mixer to beat together egg whites with sugar and cream of tartar to make a fluffy meringue, stiff enough to form peaks.

4. Remove dessert from freezer and remove plastic wrap to spoon meringue over ice cream layer, spreading evenly.

5. Heat oven to 500 degrees and place assembled dessert inside and allow meringue to brown golden for 3-4 minutes as needed.

6. Remove from oven and slice and serve on plates. Add a splash of cognac to top each plated dessert and light with flame when serving.