Dacquoise is a crisp nut meringue. They aren’t hard to make, and they add a wonderfully crisp layer of texture to a special dessert.
Bake at a low temperature to allow a dacquoise to dry more than actually bake.
The resulting layer will be crisp all the way through, but when layered with moist ingredients such as ganache or buttercream, dacquoise takes on a wonderful chewy quality. Make with any kind of nut you can think of. Enjoy!
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Dacquoise
Dacquoise is a crisp nut meringue. They aren't hard to make, and they add a wonderfully crisp layer of texture to a special dessert.
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Ingredients
- 200 g . egg whites
- 75 g . granulated sugar
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 175 g . finely ground nuts
- 175 g . 10X powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees, F. Line 2 half sheet-pans with parchment or Silpat.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip whites, granulated sugar and salt to soft peaks. Stop mixer, sift in 10x powdered sugar, and start mixer on low.
- When sugar is incorporated, crank it up to high and let whip to very glossy stiff peaks.
- Gently but thoroughly fold in the ground nuts. (Grind them in the food processor. They should look kind of like grits when you’re done).
- Pipe into the appropriate-sized circles for what you’re trying to do, or spread into half sheet pans with an offset spatula.
- Bake for 15-20 minutes until light golden and set, then turn oven down to 275 degrees, and continue to bake until dry and crisp, another 30-45 minutes, depending on the weather.
- To test, take them out of the oven and let them sit for 10 minutes to cool some. Then, either gently pick up one of your circles and tap it gently on the bottom, or take a little paring knife and poke a sneaky little hole in the bottom to see if they’re crisp all the way through.
- Let cool to room temperature and store wrapped airtight at room temperature if you’re not going to use it/them right away.
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Hi Jenni,
I’m wondering if I could use this to use as a base for a chocolate mousse dome. Will it hold up or will it get soggy? Thank you
After a day or so in the fridge it will soften and get chewy, kind of like a macaron. But you can still use it as a base as long as you have it on a cake board for stability. Hope that helps!
Definitely helps! Thanks so much!
Hi Jenni,
Can the nuts be toasted prior to grinding them and adding them to the meringue?
Also do you recommend adding cream of tartar to the meringue for stability?
Hi, Elizabeth. Yes, for more flavor, absolutely you can toast the nuts first. No need to add cream of tartar since you’ll be baking the meringue until crisp soon after making it. Enjoy!
Hi Jenni, thank you for this recipe! I have a question – nut allergies here, thus I would like to make dacquoise without nuts. Is it possible to substitute the ground nuts for, say, ground seeds and what seeds would be best? I am thinking sunflower seeds, sesame… Thank you! Gerry
Hey, Gerry! Yes, I think you could definitely get away with whole sesame seeds. Some other seeds may be too oily when ground, but it think toasted and ground pepitas could be really lovely as long as you don’t over-process. I think that’s really the main issue for using seeds over nuts: making sure you don’t grind them so far that they turn into a loose butter.