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How to make a dacquoise?
In fact, there are two elements in French pastry called “dacquoise”. The first is a cake from the South-West (the word dacquois and dacquoise referring to the inhabitants of the town of Dax in the Landes) made up of discs of almond meringue dough, sealed together with layers of buttercream. The second dacquoise, for its part, refers to the “dacquoise biscuit” which will be used in the preparation of a layered cake, or to add texture to a dessert garnished with mousse or cream. It is this second technique that interests us.
The ingredients of the dacquoise biscuit
Close in texture to the macaroon shells, the dacquoise cookie is prepared using almond powder, icing sugar, caster sugar and egg white. You can also include wheat flour depending on the recipes. If the standard dacquoise uses almonds, it can also be prepared with ground hazelnut, an almond-pistachio mixture, or with a tant pour tant coconut-almond powder.
The technique to make the dacquoise biscuit
Making the dacquoise biscuit could not be easier and does not require any in-depth pastry knowledge. For a biscuit for 6 people, for example, we start by whipping 2 egg whites. Once they start to rise, they are squeezed with caster sugar and we continue to whisk for 3 minutes to obtain a dense meringue. Do not forget that as a general rule, the dacquoise does not mold in a circle or the like but spreads directly on a plate. So if the meringue is not whipped enough, the cookie will tend to spread, which is not the desired result. Once the meringue is ready, we add 60g of almond powder and 50g of sifted icing sugar, and we mix everything with a spatula, lifting the preparation well. Be careful, the mixture must be homogeneous but you must not overwork the meringue otherwise the incorporated air will be lost. From there, the dacquoise is ready for cooking.
The advantage of this cookie is that it bakes quickly. The dough is spread out on a sheet of baking paper and baked for 15 to 20 minutes in an oven preheated to 180 ° C / th.6, monitoring the coloring. For the form, everything possible. You can spread it out in a circle, rectangle, or even a heart if you want.
And for a uniform thickness over the whole cookie, you can also slide the dough into a pastry dough fitted with a smooth tip before poaching it on the baking sheet. You can also use a baking circle as a template to obtain a perfect disc, which you remove once the dough is poached, to have a clean edge after baking. Indeed, if the dacquoise bakes in a circle, the cookie can “hang” on the circle, which is not desirable.
If you can put the dough in the oven as it is, you can also add almonds, hazelnuts or even chopped pistachios to add texture to the tasting. You can also sprinkle the dacquoise with icing sugar before cooking. Once cooked, the dacquoise should be colored on top, dry but flexible under the finger.
As soon as the cookie is baked, it can be used once cooled to make a dessert.
As a dessert, place the biscuit in the bottom of a circle or a pastry rectangle, then pour its mousse over it before leaving to set in the cold.
In the layered cake version, we prepare several discs or rectangles of dacquoise, which we superimpose alternating with whipped ganache, buttercream, pastry cream or whipped cream. The idea? Use a cream that is firm enough to prevent the cake from collapsing.
In the frozen log version, we have a layer of dacquoise in the bottom of a cake pan lined with cling film, we add a first layer of ice, a layer of dacquoise, a second layer of ice, the cookie, a last layer of ice, and we finish with the cookie. We freeze 4 hours, unmold and serve.
To test without hesitation.