Merry Christmas Eve! Feeling festive with this giant rectangular ferrero rocher # 324: Chocolate Almond Dacquoise

I’m always a tiny bit hesitant to take the first bite after spending half the day making a cake I’ve never tried before. Will it taste good? I mean, how could it not be yum with a custard buttercream with frangelico and chocolate ganache? But with naturally dry and crumbly meringue in place of the cake layers, I’m allowed to be dubious.

Joke’s on me though! The crisp texture from the meringue makes each bite taste like a ferrero rocher. So, literal heaven in an opera cake form.

I’ve never felt more like a cake gremlin, crouched in front of my baking bench after finishing the photoshoot and polishing off the entire slice in less than a minute. The buttercream and ganache put it into the extra-decadent category that makes it hard to have back to back slices, but hot damn it’s delicious.

A dacquoise is a dessert made of layers of ground nut meringue and a cream filling. If you’ve ever made macarons, you might get deja vu adding almond flour to whipped egg whites and sugar. Macarons are basically bite-sized versions of almond dacquoise. Larger dacquoise commonly include ground hazelnuts as well, and the Filipino sans rival cake mixes ground cashews into the meringue. I fell down a recipe hole and now really want to make silvanas, which are the cookie version of sans rival!

Sparkly almond sugar sand.

The nut flour adds some much needed depth to meringue’s airy sweetness.

Since I keep my almond flour in the freezer, I brought it to room temperature and whisked it to break up any clumps.

If I could go back in time, I’d make the top smooth and even instead of swoopy and pretty. It’s all going to be covered in buttercream and ganache anyway!

Cake engineer time.

Gently scoring the lines in until it cuts through, whew. Whispering encouragement and compliments to the meringue helps. Sweet nothings, if you will.

I was today years old when I learned that German buttercream starts with pastry cream as a base. Yes please! Gotta re-do my buttercream rankings:

• Swiss meringue buttercream: Marshmallowy and light, this will have the number one spot in my heart
• German buttercream: Rich and velvety, I’m so here for it
• French buttercream: Essentially Swiss meringue buttercream but swapping yolks for egg whites. I’ve never made it, but anything is better than American buttercream (don’t @ me)
• American buttercream: Yes it has vanilla in it (most of the time) but I still can’t get over the fact that it tastes like I’m eating straight unsalted butter.

While I swapped out the hazelnut flour for more almond flour in the meringue, I made up for it by using frangelico instead of amaretto in the buttercream. Boom.

The buttercream decided to split when I added the butter. So rude. Managed to convince her to come back together with a quick baine marie situation. The gentle heat helps to bring all the ingredients to the same temperature so they play nice with one another.

Corn syrup is the sneaky secret ingredient that should help keep the ganache shiny at room temperature.

Mine still turned out matte after hanging out in the fridge. C’est la vie.

It’s my offset spatula’s time to shine.

Getting lego-building vibes since the meringue layers are so crisp.

Ready to fill in all those gaps with more buttercream.

Mysterious buttercream box.

She fancy with her ganache coat.

Leveling up with almond confetti.

Went for the chaotic look instead of neat rows of shaved almonds. This baby has to chill for several hours before slicing and with a sunset at 4:50, I’m chasing sunlight.

That golden hour glow.

I debated decorating the top, but landed on less is more.

Happy munching!

Recipe from: Desserts Illustrated: The Ultimate Guide to All Things Sweet