Original Recipe: Wayne Gisslen, Professional Baking, 5th ed. (New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2009), p. 349.

Ingredients

  • Powdered almonds (60%)
  • Sugar (80%)
  • Cake flour (28%) [I just used all purpose flour]
  • Coconut, grated (10%)
  • Egg whites (100%)
  • Sugar (80%)

Method

  1. I don’t bother with almond flour because it is more expensive than raw almonds. Instead, if you have a decent blender, process the almonds in the blender until finely ground.
  2. Throw  the first quantity of sugar and the flour in the blender with the almonds and pulse together. This thoroughly combines the ingredients and further reduces the particle size of the sugar and flour, always a good thing with meringues.
  3. Put this mixture in a bowl and stir in the coconut. Set aside.
  4. Whip the egg whites to a soft peak.
  5. Add the last quantity of sugar to the egg whites and beat to firm peaks. (They should still appear moist, though.)
  6. Add the sugar/flour/almond mixture to the egg whites and fold together.
  7. Use a pastry bag to create meringue disks on parchment-lined cookie sheets. Or you could just spoon it on and flatten if you want. It depends on what you want to do with the dacquoise.
  8. Bake at 350°F (180°C) for 10 minutes or until golden.

This was my first attempt at a recipe from this book. It is also the first time I adjusted a recipe based on baker’s percentages. The ingredient list assumes you are baking by weight. The egg whites are 100%, or the baseline of the recipe. The amounts of all the other ingredients are based on the weight of egg whites you have. In the book, for example, the explicit ingredient list assumed you had 150 grams (g) of egg white. Well I had 185 g. All I had to do was scale the other quantities accordingly (i.e., sugar = 80%; 80% of 185 g is 148 g). It’s genius!

I just ate these as cookies. I wasn’t aware that they are often used as layers in a layered dessert. Num! They still work great as cookies and just melt in your mouth. In the future, though, I will add a teaspoon or two of vanilla and will probably add more coconut (15–20% instead of 10%). I now know what to do with egg whites I don’t want to freeze!