Dacquoise
Discs of nut meringue layered with buttercream. Chewy rather than crisp, which is what separates it from a vacherin.
Photograph credit: hazelnut dacquoise with espresso, crispy chicory caramel and apricot kernel sherbet by matthewokeefe · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
Photograph credit: Hazelnut Dacquoise at Blackbird by vxla · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
The Method for Dacquoise
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Heat the oven to 160°C / 325°F. Draw three 20 cm circles on baking paper.
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Whisk the egg whites with the salt to soft peaks, then add the caster sugar a spoonful at a time until stiff and glossy.
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Sift the ground nuts, icing sugar and cornflour together and fold them in with a large spoon. Stop the moment no dry patches remain.
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Spread the mixture into the three circles, level but not smoothed flat.
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Bake 60 minutes, until set and dry to the touch but still giving slightly when pressed. Cool completely on the paper.
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Beat the butter until very pale, then beat in the icing sugar, praline paste and cream.
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Stack the discs with buttercream between them, cover the top with more, and finish with toasted almonds and a dusting of icing sugar. Chill 60 minutes before cutting.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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Keep an Eye on These
- Stop folding the moment the nuts are in.
- It should still give under a finger. Crisp means overbaked.
- Cool on the paper — peeling them warm tears them.
Good to Know About Dacquoise
Ground nuts folded into the meringue keep it from drying out completely, so a dacquoise is baked at a moderate temperature for an hour rather than dried overnight like a pavlova — it should still give slightly under a finger when it comes out. Fold the nuts in with a light hand and stop the moment they are incorporated; over-folding knocks the air out and gives a flat, dense disc that never rises.
To Go With It
Coffee · Raspberries · A glass of Sauternes
Storing Leftovers
Assembled, 2 days refrigerated. The discs keep a week in a tin and are best made ahead.
Questions People Ask
How long does Dacquoise take to make?
40 minutes of preparation and 1 hour of cooking, plus 1 hour of chilling before cutting, so allow 2 hours 40 minutes from start to finish. The method also needs time for cooling completely, which it does not time, so treat that as a minimum. The recipe serves 8.
Nutrition per Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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