Chocolate & Hazelnut Dacquoise

Method

For the dacquoise:

• 1)

  To start off, blanch the hazelnuts in a pot of boiling water with a tablespoon of baking soda. Keep the hazelnut submereged for 3 minutes, then immediately transfer to a bowl of cold water to stop the cooking process. Easily peel off the skin by hand.

• 2)

  Now to toast your skinned hazelnuts, either place them in a pan over medium heat and toss constantly for 10 minutes or transfer to a baking tray and bake in the center of your oven for 10 minutes on 180*C.

• 3)

  Once toasted, let the hazelnuts cool down, then blend semi-fine in a food processor. (you don’t want to go all the way to flour fine, some little bits and chunks are appreciated.)

• 4)

  Now in your mixing bowl, add the ground hazelnuts, powdered sugar and corn flour, mix to incorporate.

• 5)

  In a second bowl, beat the egg whites and salt with an electric mixer on medium speed until soft peaks start to appear. Once you reach the desired texture, turn the speed to high and start adding granulated sugar gradually and keep beating until stiff and glossy sharp peaks have formed.

• 6)

  Now place your dry ingredients over your french meringue and start gently folding with a rubber spatula, going from the bottom and working up to the top incorporating more air.

• 7)

  Once all the ingredients are just incorporated beautifully, transfer your mixture to a piping bag fitted with a wide nozzle.

• 8)

  Place a piece of parchment paper on your baking tray and draw out a 20cm diameter circle. Starting from the center, gently pipe out the dacquoise circularly, making sure not to overlap the drawn edges. Repeat this step 3 times for 3 seperate dacquoise layers. (I smeared some of the batter under the parchment paper to help it stick, it looks awful, but does the trick.)

   

• 9)

  Bake the dacquoise in a preheated oven to 150*C for 1 hour. If using an oven with Fan feature, place all of the dacquoise layers in the oven simultaneously and switch their positions every 15 minutes just to make double sure they’re baked evenly.

• 10)

  Remove the dacquoise from the parchment paper within first few minutes of baking, as they will stick completely once cooled.

For the chocolate cream:

• 1)

  Add the milk and the vanilla to a heavy bottom pot and bring to a boil on medium-low heat.

• 2)

  While the milk is heating, in a mixing bowl, beat together yolks, sugar, cocoa powder and cornstarch until light and creamy. (approx. 2 minutes with an electric mixer.)

• 3)

  When the milk reaches a boil, take it off the heat and temper in your egg mixture. That means you need to pour some (about a third) hot milk very gently into the yolks mixture while constantly whisking to raise their temperature steadily. If you were to add your yolks into the hot milk you would get a scrambled egg. (the tempering photo is from a different recipe.)

• 4)

  Now transfer your tempered mixture into the pot with the remaining milk and place over medium-low heat whisking constantly until it starts thickening to a pudding like consistency. Your cream must be taken off the heat once the air bubbles start to rapidly pop up on the surface, or reaching 80*C if using a food thermometer.

• 5)

  Now toss in your chopped chocolate and whisk untill all of the chocolate has blended in to the cream.

• 6)

  Once blended, add in your room temp butter and mix with a rubber spatula, rather than a whisk so as not to break the milk solids apart until blended. (I switched to a spatula after having taken the photo.)

• 7)

  Place the chocolate cream in a bowl, and cover the surface with cling film, then refrigirate until completely cooled.

For the garnish:

• 1)

  Place your toasted and skinned hazelnuts into a nonstick pan along with powdered sugar.

• 2)

  Keeping the pan constantly on medium heat, stir the hazelnuts and sugar with a spatula until caramelized. this will take 5-10 minutes. Be careful to take the pan off the heat once reaching an amber color, going any further will make the hazelnuts bitter.

• 3)

  Transfer to a piece of parchment paper and chop once cooled.

To assemble your dacquoise cake:

• 1)

  To assemble your dacquoise, place a tablespoon of your cream onto your serving plate and set one dacquoise layer over to make it stick. Pipe out your chocolate cream over the dacquoise layer. Place another dacquoise layer over the cream and repeat. Top with the last layer and garnish with powdered sugar and chopped caramelized hazelnuts.

• 2)

  If you prefer a more rustic look, keep the sides uncovered, I had excess chocolate cream and used it to spread out over the sides and garnished with extra chopped hazelnuts.