Dacquoise
Scaled amounts are a guide — baking times and pan sizes do not scale with them.
Ingredients
- 140 g almonds or almond flour
- 140 g hazelnuts
- 35 g all-purpose flour
- 280 g egg whites (about 8 large)
- 340 g granulated sugar
- 140 g toasted skinned hazelnuts (reserve 24 whole), 115 g confectioner's sugar and 2 tbsp hazelnut oil, for the hazelnut paste
- 115 g granulated sugar, to candy the whole hazelnuts
- 1 batch dark chocolate ganache
- 1 batch Italian meringue buttercream, with the hazelnut paste beaten in
- ½ batch chocolate whipped cream
Dacquoise means 'of Dax', and it is really a technique before it is a cake: egg whites whipped with sugar and folded with ground almonds and hazelnuts, then baked low and slow until crisp all the way through. Cut into four long slabs and stacked with chocolate ganache, hazelnut buttercream and chocolate cream, it becomes the marjolaine — the oblong version Fernand Point made famous. The meringue must cool inside the switched-off oven, and the finished cake needs hours in the fridge before it slices cleanly.
Method
Heat the oven to 135°C (275°F) and line a half sheet pan with parchment. Grind the almonds and hazelnuts fine in a food processor, pulse in the flour and set aside.
Whisk the egg whites on medium speed to soft peaks, add the sugar gradually, then raise the speed to medium-high and beat to stiff peaks.
Fold the ground nuts into the meringue in two batches, spread the batter evenly in the pan and bake for about 1 hour, until lightly browned and firm. Turn the oven off and let it cool completely inside.
Blend the toasted hazelnuts with the confectioner's sugar and hazelnut oil into a paste, and beat that paste into the Italian meringue buttercream. Caramelise the reserved whole hazelnuts in the 115 g sugar.
Cut the cooled dacquoise into four equal pieces with a serrated knife, using a sawing motion.
Build it up: first slab spread with a quarter of the ganache and half the chocolate cream; second with a third of the hazelnut buttercream; third with more ganache and the rest of the chocolate cream; fourth laid smooth-side up.
Ice the whole cake with buttercream, chill 2 hours, glaze with warmed ganache, and finish with piped rosettes topped with the candied hazelnuts. Refrigerate until an hour before serving.
