AuthorviagelatohawaiiCategoryBaking, Hawaii RecipesDifficultyAdvancedA stunning layered entremet or cake with light airy and crunchy macadamia nut dacquoise (meringue), layered with vanilla chiffon sponge cake and creamy tropical mango bavarois cream, topped with fresh tart lilikoi and white chocolate cremeux
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees to bake the sponge cake.
Both the sponge cake and the dacquoise require egg whites whipped. The dacquoise crust requires 3 egg whites whipped, and the sponge requires 3 egg whites whipped so I prepare them all at the same time for both the sponge cake and the dacquoise to whip the whites nicely (whipping only 3 egg whites at a time in my stand mixer doesn't work very well).
Prepare the stand mixer bowl and whisk attachment so they are pristinely clean and dry. If they are not clean, the egg whites will not whip up.
Put 6 egg whites into the bowl + 3/4 sugar, whisk to combine.
Put the bowl on top of a pot with 1 inch of water simmering (the bain marie).
Warm the egg whites in this way while whisking until you reach 165 degrees F.
Why do this?
Egg whites need to be at the minimum, room temp to whip up so the proteins relax and can be formed into a new structure. When you work with cold egg whites, they will not whip up at all. Heating to 165 degrees ensures that the proteins relax to the greatest degree which makes your whipping come out perfectly every single time. The success rate and consistency will yield the most professional and wonderful results for anything requiring egg whites whipped.
Add 1/2 tsp cornstarch
Add 1/2 tsp vinegar
Put the bowl into the stand mixer, use the whisk attachment and whip on medium high speed until you have soft peaks
Separate the volume of whipped egg whites into 2 bowls since you will use one for the Chiffon Sponge Cake and one for the Dacquoise Crust.
Divide the volume in half. It is not important for this to be extremely precise - I just eyeball it.
Now that the mixing bowl for the stand mixer is empty, use it to whip the egg yolk mixture. Don't bother washing it, just use the bowl.
In the bowl put:
3 egg yolks
3 whole eggs
3/4 cup sugar
Use the stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Gradually get to the highest speed (going one level at a time is healthy for your stand mixer, cranking it from 0 to highest speed stresses the machine and can cause it to break - think about it like accelerating a car to top speed). Whip it up to twice its volume. It will get lighter in color, fluffy, and will appear stiffer where you can see the whisk marks as it whips the mixture and it will be at least double in size when ready. Try to match whipping your egg yolks to look like the photo. The color that is acceptable is the light color of American butter, or lighter - the color of pancake batter.
Once the Egg Yolk mix is whipped fluffy and the color of pancake batter or butter, add:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/16 tsp of vanilla bean powder or use 1 tsp vanilla extract
Turn the mixer on and whisk a little bit just so that the additional ingredients are incorporated. Do not whisk for longer than it takes to mix in the oil - you don't want the mixture to go flat and return to a liquid on you by overmixing.
Always sift so that you don't have clumps of dry ingredients stuck together. I simply use a sieve and put all the dry ingredients in it. Using my hand I stir it in the sieve which makes the ingredients mixed as well as sifts them out through the sieve.
In a sieve or sifter:
3/4 cup flour (all purpose is fine)
3/4 tsp baking powder (this will guarantee the fluffiness of the chiffon sponge)
Starting with the fluffy egg yolk mixture in the stand mixing bowl, you will add the dry ingredients by gradually folding it into the egg yolk mix.
Once you've folded the flour in, fold in the whipped egg whites that you set aside for the chiffon cake (it's the bowl with slightly more egg white fluff in it)
What Is Folding?
If you only fold by going around and around the bowl, you'll never get the middle. I fold by alternating dragging the spatula through the mixture (like you're diving it in half then going around the bowl making sure you reach the bottom and I go around in that way about 5 times, then I drag the spatula through the middle again. Some people fold using a figure 8 sort of pathway. It's pretty much for the same reason: to get the different mixtures, gently but fairly thoroughly incorporated together.
Prepare a sheet pan with parchment and spray it with cooking spray so the cake comes easily off the parchment.
Pour out the mixture onto your sheet pan and spread it so the depth of the batter is about 1/4" thick which is really not very thick at all. Think of it as the thickness of a pancake batter in a pan because essentially you are making a huge pancake style cake.
Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees F it will look like a fluffy brown puffy, slightly wobbly baked cake.
If you overbake it, it will appear more and more brown and wrinkly, so if it already looks brown and wrinkly, take it out of the pan and let it cool on the counter.
If you underbake it, it will appear white and very wobbly like jello due to the liquid inside that isn't cooked. In that case, bake it longer 1 minute at a time, until it appears fluffy and brown
What Size To Use? How much to spread the batter?
I generally use a 1/2 or 3/4 sheet pan because that is what fits inside my oven. Entremets are many layered, so the sponge cake is meant to be delicate and not very thick (after all you're using 2 layers of sponge). The sponge cake AFTER it's baked should not be more than 1/2 inch thick, but not less than 1/4 inch thick. When you're spreading the batter, let's say you only have a really large sheet pan or you feel like the batter isn't going to be enough for the pan. Rather than spreading the mixture all the way to the edges, just spread it until it is 1/4" thick batter. You're going to simply cut the cake in half to get the 2 layers, and when you assemble the final product, the edges will all be trimmed off, so don't worry about perfecting the edges of the sponge cake. Let's say you have a really small pan - don't cram all the batter into one pan, simply bake it in 2 batches; you need the cake to be a thin style of sponge cake. If you cram all the batter into one small pan, you will need to bake it longer (15 min) and you'll have to try to saw the cake in half to achieve 2 thin layers which you'll need to do while the cake is baked and frozen.
Once the sponge is baked and out cooling, turn the oven down to 300 degrees to roast your macadamia nuts for 10-15 minutes. If the nuts are already roasted, you can skip these roasting steps, and turn the oven down to 250 degrees which is the temp to cook the dacquoise crust.
Use macadamia nuts that are UNSALTED. Macadamia nuts generally come roasted because if they aren't, they need to be kept in a freezer so they don't go rancid (the high oil content in the nuts causes them to go rancid very quickly). I always store all my nuts in the freezer for best flavor. In Hawaii, we have access to fresh macadamia nuts from trees growing outside so these are the instructions to roast them:
Measure out ***1 cup*** macadamia nuts (you need 2/3 c for the recipe but, when they are whole or halves, they have a lot of space between them). Pulse them in the food processor to roughly chop them. Spread them out on a parchment on a sheet pan (do not grease the parchment). Dry roast them in the oven for 15 minutes or until fragrant or until light golden at 300 degrees. Do not roast until the nuts are brown (that will cause a burned flavor)
Once roasted, or if you're starting with roasted macadamia nuts, pulse blitz the nuts in the food processor until you have a coarse powder.
You do not want a nut paste.
How do you know how far to go?
You can hear if the change in the nuts as you pulse. It will start off sounding loud and raucous because the blades are flinging the large nuts against the side of the plastic bowl. As the nut pieces get smaller, the rattling sound will sound gradually quieter. If you cannot hear rattling, that is not good. No rattling and just the hum of the motor means that you have gone into the nut butter transition. Nut butter occurs when the pieces are so small that now, they are spinning in their own oil and if you continue, it will truly become a paste. This is why you pulse to blitz. If you pulse, you can hear the gradual change as the nuts get smaller. You are looking for the consistency of coarse sand. Finer than chopped nuts, but not so fine that you have a powder like flour or almond flour. Macadamia nuts are very delicate and so easy to chew - the more delicate the nut, the coarser you can make the powder for the dacquoise (again, like coarse sand). If you use a hard nut like almonds, you'll want to pulse and blitz the nuts until they resemble almond flour.
Clean the mixing bowl and whisk attachment very thoroughly and dry it. The bowl should not feel oily at all.
You're going to re-whip the egg whites that you started earlier. And this time, you're going to whip them until they are shiny. Egg whites for chiffon cake, only need to be whipped to a soft foamy peak. Dacquoise is a nut meringue and meringues need to be whipped to their highest potential which is stiff and shiny.
In the clean mixing bowl put:
The two remaining egg white foam you prepped earlier
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp vinegar
4 Tbsp sugar
Using the whisk attachment, gradually turn up the mixing speed to high and whip the egg whites until they are glossy and then stiff.
How Do You Know When It's Whipped Stiff?
The egg whites will start off looking foamy, then they will start to look much more opaquely white and shiny. The difference is like aerated hand soap and shaving cream/marshmallow fluff. You want it to look like shaving cream or marshmallow fluff (which is a meringue).
It is possible to overwhip where you've passed the stiffest stage and now you're whipping it even more and actually breaking the structure so that it gets more liquidy. That is not what you want. You want stiff and the best way to know that once it gets to a shiny opaque white stage is to stop the mixer and pull out the whisk and feel what that feels like. Stiff is exactly what it sounds like - as you whip it stiffer, the whisk attachment will have more and more stiff resistance to being pulled out. When you check it the first time, it will have a certain amount of resistance. When you whip more, and check it again, ask yourself, how does it feel when you pull out the attachment?
Is it the same? Stiffer? Or LESS stiff.
If it feels the same, try whipping it more and test again. If it's stiff and provides resistance when you pull out the attachment, you can stop. If it feels stiffer, you can stop. If it is actually getting LESS stiff than the last time you tested, just stop; you don't want to overwhip the mixture.
There is a whole spectrum of stiffness that the dacquoise/meringue will be just great. You don't have to have it at the stiffest pinnacle possible. It doesn't have to be perfect. If the meringue provides resistance as you pull out the whisk attachment, you've done a good job. You just don't want it liquidy and pouring out of the bowl like a batter or a liquidy bubble bath foam texture.
Fold in the coarse macadamia nut powder. Meringue with nut powder in it is dacquoise.
Prepare the baking sheet (half sheet: it will not fill the entire sheet! It will only fill about half the sheet). Put parchment on it and spray it with cooking spray.
Scoop out the dacquoise and spread it so that it is around a 1/4" thick or so. Remember, at 1/4" thick it will not fill the entire sheet!
How Thin/Thick?
Aim for about 1/4" depth of the dacquoise. An 1/8" is fine too - the dacquoise will puff up as it bakes (then fall a little when it cools). Too thin is where you can see the parchment through the dacquoise. Not that thin. You also don't want thicker than 1/4 inch. Half an inch is a lot of dacquoise, remember, this is a delicate entremet. Half an inch of crust is a lot of crust for any dessert.
Bake the dacquoise at 250 degrees for 1 hour.
After 1 hour, open the oven and touch it - it should feel very firm.
Turn the oven off and leave it in there for at least 1 hour with the door cracked open with a wooden spoon.
How Do I Know When It's Done?
Meringue/dacquoise bake from the outside in. If only the outside is baked, it will feel like the hard layer is only the outside and it will feel fragile (because it is filled with a soft marshmallow interior and only hard on the outside). As it bakes longer, the hard layer grows and if the entire meringue is fully baked it will feel hard and quite sturdy (although it is still light since it's full of air like a styrofoam cooler). It's done when it feels hard and sturdy. Having a little marshmallow center is fine - the dacquoise will continue to bake through carry over cooking and heat left in the oven and it will also continue to dry out. If you spread your dacquoise a little on the thick side, it could take 1.5 hours to cook.
How Do I Know If It's Over Done?
If you smell burning, definitely check on it - something is wrong. It should not be burning, the oven is at such a low temp (250 degrees) I've never seen it burn. As the dacquoise cooks longer, it will go from light cream to more tan, but it should never be brown. It should look like a pale shortbread cookie at it's darkest. If it's getting too dark, just turn the heat down to 225 degrees (but no lower than that). If it's done before 1 hour, you probably spread the dacquoise too thin, but that's ok. Just stop the cooking process early. A thin dacquoise will cook much faster than a thick one. If yours is done and feels dry and hard, just turn off the oven. If it's too brown, turn off the oven and take it out. Don't bother with the wooden spoon and letting it dry out further in the oven, just take it out, it's already overdone anyway. Just because it's brown, doesn't mean it is no good. Cut off a piece and try it. It should taste like light airy, crisp nut candy. It should not taste burned. If it tastes burned, unfortunately I would just throw it out. And just skip the dacquoise layer entirely.
In a pot:
2 cups of half and half (1 cup heavy cream + 1 cup milk)
heat until it is steaming
Meanwhile whisk in a bowl:
7 eggs yolks
1 whole egg
Add the steaming hot half and half to the whisked egg mixture gradually. Dump everything back into the pot and whisk it while it heats. Do not stop whisking, lest you burn the custard or it forms a skin at the bottom. It should get thicker and resemble a thick gravy or loose pudding. At that point turn off the heat and take it off the heat.
If you are unsure if the custard has lumps or burned pieces, put it through a sieve and strain out the lumps. If you were whisking the whole time and you're comfortable with it, just add the 10oz of white chocolate in it. I don't strain unless I know there is stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan. Whisk OFF THE HEAT until the chocolate has totally dissolved. The residual heat of the custard will melt the chocolate and the white chocolate will thicken the custard even further.
Dealing With Issues:
If you really messed up and did not whisk it or cooked it on too high heat, first taste it. If it tastes ok, but is lumpy or not smooth, you can vitamix it and it will be fine. If it tastes burned or like hard boiled eggs, throw it out and start over, you can't fix that gross taste.
Put plastic wrap directly on top of the cremeux (even though it's hot). If you don't cover it with plastic, a skin will form on the top as it cools.
Cool the cremeux in the fridge (4 hours minimum) or the freezer (for an hour or so). When it cools it will become completely set, but will remain flexible; it is pipe-able and moldable. Cremeux is custard meets ganache.
Soften 5 sheets of silver level gelatin in ice water. (If you don't use icy water, the gelatin will simply melt away into the liquid)
In a pot, heat 1/2 c mango puree
Once hot (it doesn't need to boil or anything), add the hydrated gelatin which should feel rubbery like seaweed.
If the gelatin still feels stiff, it needs more time to hydrate in the icy water.
Turn off the heat.
Whisk the gelatin in the hot mango puree until it has completely dissolved.
If the gelatin refuses to dissolve, turn the heat on again and keep whisking until it has dissolved.
If it still refuses to dissolve, add the other 1/2 cup of diced mango into the mixture as well (the extra liquid will help it to dissolve).
Cool the pot with all the mango puree and diced mango until the mixture is at least room temp.
In a stand mixer whip with the whisk attachment on medium high speed:
1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
4 Tbsp sugar
Whisk until you have whipped cream and soft peaks. You know it is done when you can see the whisk marks in the cream as it whirls around. If the cream starts to look grainy, STOP. Whipping it further will only make it grainier and curdle and eventually turn to butter.
Gradually add and fold in the cooled mango and gelatin mixture in with the whipped cream. If the whipped cream appears to be melting, then feel your mango mixture. Is it hot/warm? If so, you need to cool it down. You do not want to melt the whipped cream.
Put down parchment paper.
Start with the layer of dacquoise
Cut your sponge cake in half so that it is around the size of the dacquoise and stack it on top of the dacquoise.
Doesn't seem the same size? Just trim it so it's around the same size. If you have a ring mold or rectangle mold, now is the time to use those, but they are not necessary.
Scoop out half of the mango bavarois and spread it on top of the sponge cake. (You want it to be around 1/4" depth) Don't worry about spreading it perfectly all the way to the edge (you're going to trim off all the edges so messy or incomplete edges are not an issue). Now stick the whole thing in the freezer and freeze it for 10 minutes to set the bavarois. (Keep the other half of the bavarois in the fridge while you wait).
Add the next layer of sponge cake and then top with bavarois and put it in the freezer again to set the layers.
Cut open the lilikoi and scoop out the pulp and seeds. Using your fingers or using a fork, loosen the pulp with a motion like scrambling eggs. Spread that pulp across the frozen mango bavarois. It's tartness and freshness is an ideal complement to the sweet and creamy layers.
Return the layered entremet to the freezer
Prepare the piping bag with a large round hole tip (~808).
Using a butter knife add dabs of lilikoi concentrate around the inside of the bag (this will create the streaks in the cremeux)
How To Fill A Piping Bag:
Start with putting the tip inside.
Clip the bag so that when you put things inside, they don't slide out before you're ready to pipe.
Put the bag inside a cup
Turn the bag over the edge of the cup
Put the cremeux into the piping bag.
Take the entremet out of the freezer and trim it and cut it up into the serving sizes. Once it is set, it is extremely easy to cut clean lines and the layers are all easy to cut through. Generally entremet portions are small and for an individual. Cut off the edges so you're left with the gorgeous clean lines of the interior and figure out how best to get the portions you want out of the slab. I recommend 1"X 2.5" for petite servings. If you want large American sized dessert portions, cut them into 2"X 4" rectangles.
How To Cut:
Choose to cut all vertical first then all horizontal cuts, or vice versa.
Eg. measure 2.5" on one side, then 2.5" on the other side. Now you have score marks telling you where to start your knife and where to end it. If you need more markers, make another 2.5" mark in the middle. Once you cut that off, continue so that you have all the 2.5" batons.
Next, you will cut those batons into the smaller batons by marking it in 1' increments then cutting all of those to have the final entremet servings.
CAUTION:
When you move the entremet servings, careful, the bottom crust, the dacquoise is crisp and slippery because it's so smooth and dry. I've dropped a lot of them moving them from one place to another and the inertia just takes them flying off the spatula. They are very set use your fingers to grab and steady them, so they don't slide or fly off the spatula when you move them.
Close the top of the piping bag. Unclip the bottom of the piping bag. Keeping the tip and the bag vertical, practice piping the kisses on a plate. This is to get a feel for how large you want to make them and the feel for how to manipulate the bag. You want to fit three kisses on each entremet serving.
Piping method:
Make sure the top of the bag is twisted closed. I wind the extra top part around my thumb so that it is truly twisted shut - no contents will go out the wide end of the bag because it is twisted shut. Hold and squeeze the bag with your dominant hand, your other hand is just there to help guide the bag up and down - it does not squeeze.
Pipe by holding the tip 1/4"-1/2" above the surface, keep the tip in that position and squeeze, the cremeux will come out initially the diameter of the piping tip and then expand wider in diameter the longer you squeeze. The practice is to gauge how large you want to squeeze out the cremeux. Cremeux is extremely stable, so don't worry, it's not going to run, you can take your time. Once you achieve the diameter you want, STOP SQUEEZING. And with a decisive motion, simply lift the piping bag straight up. This will create the tapered kiss vertical tail. Repeat so that you have 3 kisses per serving.
In the photo above, I created the example kiss on the left and my partner practiced next to it, practicing and getting a feel for the piping bag. In this practice photo, I can point out some common mistakes and possible frustrations.
Common Mistakes and Frustrations:
The kisses ideally are next to each other but not squashing or overlaying on top of each other. A common mistake is to start the piping tip for the next kiss, right next to the first one. Remember, the kisses are going to expand, larger than the tip, so logically, you want to start the kiss at least a piping tip diameter away from the last one. Like plants that grow and expand, you don't plant seeds right next to each other. You space them out envisioning the room they need to grow. Piping is similar. Think about the diameter of the kiss and aim for the center of the next kiss you want to form. You can see in the photo that the kisses could be spaced out a little more.
Another common mistake is forgetting about how to pipe entirely. Instead of holding the bag vertically, some people hold it at an angle, like a pencil. If you hold it at an angle, your kiss will come out at an angle and the tail will not be vertical, but at the angle you are holding the bag.
The most noticeable frustration my partner had when making these were his were coming out like poop piles. With the poop emoji, the poop shape is pretty recognizable. The poop shape is created by starting at the bottom and squeezing then moving the piping bag up a hair and then squeezing again, then moving the piping tip in a circle at the end to finish off the tail. Poop shape! If you want a kiss shape and not a poop shape, there is only one level at which you squeeze the bag and that is the starting level. Once you are happy with the size of the kiss, commit to that and stop squeezing the bag. Simply stop squeezing then lift the bag straight up and the tail will form. If you squeeze as you lift, more poop shape squeezes will come out.
All in all, everything will still taste delicious mistakes and all. So if you're a first timer, or don't pipe often, take the time to practice on a plate and get a feel for how the cremeux comes out as you squeeze and move the bag.
For the extra vavoom, warm 125g dark chocolate in a dry glass container until softened. Using a dry whisk or fork, stir the softened chocolate until it is glossy, smooth and completely melted (no lumps or chunks). Using an offset spatula, spread the dark chocolate onto acetate or parchment paper. Put it in the freezer for 15 minutes to completely harden.
When hardened, bend the paper or acetate back to peel the chocolate off. Bend it in the opposite direction to snap it off. Pick up the shard by holding it on the edges, if you hold the chocolate on the flat side, your finger print will be there, and the chocolate will melt.
Arrange the shard on the top to create the look that you want. Serve straight out the fridge, or serve when you're done decorating. The many textures and flavors is what makes this entremet stunning to eat and look at.
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees to bake the sponge cake.
Both the sponge cake and the dacquoise require egg whites whipped. The dacquoise crust requires 3 egg whites whipped, and the sponge requires 3 egg whites whipped so I prepare them all at the same time for both the sponge cake and the dacquoise to whip the whites nicely (whipping only 3 egg whites at a time in my stand mixer doesn't work very well).
Prepare the stand mixer bowl and whisk attachment so they are pristinely clean and dry. If they are not clean, the egg whites will not whip up.
Put 6 egg whites into the bowl + 3/4 sugar, whisk to combine.
Put the bowl on top of a pot with 1 inch of water simmering (the bain marie).
Warm the egg whites in this way while whisking until you reach 165 degrees F.
Why do this?
Egg whites need to be at the minimum, room temp to whip up so the proteins relax and can be formed into a new structure. When you work with cold egg whites, they will not whip up at all. Heating to 165 degrees ensures that the proteins relax to the greatest degree which makes your whipping come out perfectly every single time. The success rate and consistency will yield the most professional and wonderful results for anything requiring egg whites whipped.
Add 1/2 tsp cornstarch
Add 1/2 tsp vinegar
Put the bowl into the stand mixer, use the whisk attachment and whip on medium high speed until you have soft peaks
Separate the volume of whipped egg whites into 2 bowls since you will use one for the Chiffon Sponge Cake and one for the Dacquoise Crust.
Divide the volume in half. It is not important for this to be extremely precise - I just eyeball it.
Now that the mixing bowl for the stand mixer is empty, use it to whip the egg yolk mixture. Don't bother washing it, just use the bowl.
In the bowl put:
3 egg yolks
3 whole eggs
3/4 cup sugar
Use the stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Gradually get to the highest speed (going one level at a time is healthy for your stand mixer, cranking it from 0 to highest speed stresses the machine and can cause it to break - think about it like accelerating a car to top speed). Whip it up to twice its volume. It will get lighter in color, fluffy, and will appear stiffer where you can see the whisk marks as it whips the mixture and it will be at least double in size when ready. Try to match whipping your egg yolks to look like the photo. The color that is acceptable is the light color of American butter, or lighter - the color of pancake batter.
Once the Egg Yolk mix is whipped fluffy and the color of pancake batter or butter, add:
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/16 tsp of vanilla bean powder or use 1 tsp vanilla extract
Turn the mixer on and whisk a little bit just so that the additional ingredients are incorporated. Do not whisk for longer than it takes to mix in the oil - you don't want the mixture to go flat and return to a liquid on you by overmixing.
Always sift so that you don't have clumps of dry ingredients stuck together. I simply use a sieve and put all the dry ingredients in it. Using my hand I stir it in the sieve which makes the ingredients mixed as well as sifts them out through the sieve.
In a sieve or sifter:
3/4 cup flour (all purpose is fine)
3/4 tsp baking powder (this will guarantee the fluffiness of the chiffon sponge)
Starting with the fluffy egg yolk mixture in the stand mixing bowl, you will add the dry ingredients by gradually folding it into the egg yolk mix.
Once you've folded the flour in, fold in the whipped egg whites that you set aside for the chiffon cake (it's the bowl with slightly more egg white fluff in it)
What Is Folding?
If you only fold by going around and around the bowl, you'll never get the middle. I fold by alternating dragging the spatula through the mixture (like you're diving it in half then going around the bowl making sure you reach the bottom and I go around in that way about 5 times, then I drag the spatula through the middle again. Some people fold using a figure 8 sort of pathway. It's pretty much for the same reason: to get the different mixtures, gently but fairly thoroughly incorporated together.
Prepare a sheet pan with parchment and spray it with cooking spray so the cake comes easily off the parchment.
Pour out the mixture onto your sheet pan and spread it so the depth of the batter is about 1/4" thick which is really not very thick at all. Think of it as the thickness of a pancake batter in a pan because essentially you are making a huge pancake style cake.
Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees F it will look like a fluffy brown puffy, slightly wobbly baked cake.
If you overbake it, it will appear more and more brown and wrinkly, so if it already looks brown and wrinkly, take it out of the pan and let it cool on the counter.
If you underbake it, it will appear white and very wobbly like jello due to the liquid inside that isn't cooked. In that case, bake it longer 1 minute at a time, until it appears fluffy and brown
What Size To Use? How much to spread the batter?
I generally use a 1/2 or 3/4 sheet pan because that is what fits inside my oven. Entremets are many layered, so the sponge cake is meant to be delicate and not very thick (after all you're using 2 layers of sponge). The sponge cake AFTER it's baked should not be more than 1/2 inch thick, but not less than 1/4 inch thick. When you're spreading the batter, let's say you only have a really large sheet pan or you feel like the batter isn't going to be enough for the pan. Rather than spreading the mixture all the way to the edges, just spread it until it is 1/4" thick batter. You're going to simply cut the cake in half to get the 2 layers, and when you assemble the final product, the edges will all be trimmed off, so don't worry about perfecting the edges of the sponge cake. Let's say you have a really small pan - don't cram all the batter into one pan, simply bake it in 2 batches; you need the cake to be a thin style of sponge cake. If you cram all the batter into one small pan, you will need to bake it longer (15 min) and you'll have to try to saw the cake in half to achieve 2 thin layers which you'll need to do while the cake is baked and frozen.
Once the sponge is baked and out cooling, turn the oven down to 300 degrees to roast your macadamia nuts for 10-15 minutes. If the nuts are already roasted, you can skip these roasting steps, and turn the oven down to 250 degrees which is the temp to cook the dacquoise crust.
Use macadamia nuts that are UNSALTED. Macadamia nuts generally come roasted because if they aren't, they need to be kept in a freezer so they don't go rancid (the high oil content in the nuts causes them to go rancid very quickly). I always store all my nuts in the freezer for best flavor. In Hawaii, we have access to fresh macadamia nuts from trees growing outside so these are the instructions to roast them:
Measure out ***1 cup*** macadamia nuts (you need 2/3 c for the recipe but, when they are whole or halves, they have a lot of space between them). Pulse them in the food processor to roughly chop them. Spread them out on a parchment on a sheet pan (do not grease the parchment). Dry roast them in the oven for 15 minutes or until fragrant or until light golden at 300 degrees. Do not roast until the nuts are brown (that will cause a burned flavor)
Once roasted, or if you're starting with roasted macadamia nuts, pulse blitz the nuts in the food processor until you have a coarse powder.
You do not want a nut paste.
How do you know how far to go?
You can hear if the change in the nuts as you pulse. It will start off sounding loud and raucous because the blades are flinging the large nuts against the side of the plastic bowl. As the nut pieces get smaller, the rattling sound will sound gradually quieter. If you cannot hear rattling, that is not good. No rattling and just the hum of the motor means that you have gone into the nut butter transition. Nut butter occurs when the pieces are so small that now, they are spinning in their own oil and if you continue, it will truly become a paste. This is why you pulse to blitz. If you pulse, you can hear the gradual change as the nuts get smaller. You are looking for the consistency of coarse sand. Finer than chopped nuts, but not so fine that you have a powder like flour or almond flour. Macadamia nuts are very delicate and so easy to chew - the more delicate the nut, the coarser you can make the powder for the dacquoise (again, like coarse sand). If you use a hard nut like almonds, you'll want to pulse and blitz the nuts until they resemble almond flour.
Clean the mixing bowl and whisk attachment very thoroughly and dry it. The bowl should not feel oily at all.
You're going to re-whip the egg whites that you started earlier. And this time, you're going to whip them until they are shiny. Egg whites for chiffon cake, only need to be whipped to a soft foamy peak. Dacquoise is a nut meringue and meringues need to be whipped to their highest potential which is stiff and shiny.
In the clean mixing bowl put:
The two remaining egg white foam you prepped earlier
1 tsp cornstarch
1 tsp vinegar
4 Tbsp sugar
Using the whisk attachment, gradually turn up the mixing speed to high and whip the egg whites until they are glossy and then stiff.
How Do You Know When It's Whipped Stiff?
The egg whites will start off looking foamy, then they will start to look much more opaquely white and shiny. The difference is like aerated hand soap and shaving cream/marshmallow fluff. You want it to look like shaving cream or marshmallow fluff (which is a meringue).
It is possible to overwhip where you've passed the stiffest stage and now you're whipping it even more and actually breaking the structure so that it gets more liquidy. That is not what you want. You want stiff and the best way to know that once it gets to a shiny opaque white stage is to stop the mixer and pull out the whisk and feel what that feels like. Stiff is exactly what it sounds like - as you whip it stiffer, the whisk attachment will have more and more stiff resistance to being pulled out. When you check it the first time, it will have a certain amount of resistance. When you whip more, and check it again, ask yourself, how does it feel when you pull out the attachment?
Is it the same? Stiffer? Or LESS stiff.
If it feels the same, try whipping it more and test again. If it's stiff and provides resistance when you pull out the attachment, you can stop. If it feels stiffer, you can stop. If it is actually getting LESS stiff than the last time you tested, just stop; you don't want to overwhip the mixture.
There is a whole spectrum of stiffness that the dacquoise/meringue will be just great. You don't have to have it at the stiffest pinnacle possible. It doesn't have to be perfect. If the meringue provides resistance as you pull out the whisk attachment, you've done a good job. You just don't want it liquidy and pouring out of the bowl like a batter or a liquidy bubble bath foam texture.
Fold in the coarse macadamia nut powder. Meringue with nut powder in it is dacquoise.
Prepare the baking sheet (half sheet: it will not fill the entire sheet! It will only fill about half the sheet). Put parchment on it and spray it with cooking spray.
Scoop out the dacquoise and spread it so that it is around a 1/4" thick or so. Remember, at 1/4" thick it will not fill the entire sheet!
How Thin/Thick?
Aim for about 1/4" depth of the dacquoise. An 1/8" is fine too - the dacquoise will puff up as it bakes (then fall a little when it cools). Too thin is where you can see the parchment through the dacquoise. Not that thin. You also don't want thicker than 1/4 inch. Half an inch is a lot of dacquoise, remember, this is a delicate entremet. Half an inch of crust is a lot of crust for any dessert.
Bake the dacquoise at 250 degrees for 1 hour.
After 1 hour, open the oven and touch it - it should feel very firm.
Turn the oven off and leave it in there for at least 1 hour with the door cracked open with a wooden spoon.
How Do I Know When It's Done?
Meringue/dacquoise bake from the outside in. If only the outside is baked, it will feel like the hard layer is only the outside and it will feel fragile (because it is filled with a soft marshmallow interior and only hard on the outside). As it bakes longer, the hard layer grows and if the entire meringue is fully baked it will feel hard and quite sturdy (although it is still light since it's full of air like a styrofoam cooler). It's done when it feels hard and sturdy. Having a little marshmallow center is fine - the dacquoise will continue to bake through carry over cooking and heat left in the oven and it will also continue to dry out. If you spread your dacquoise a little on the thick side, it could take 1.5 hours to cook.
How Do I Know If It's Over Done?
If you smell burning, definitely check on it - something is wrong. It should not be burning, the oven is at such a low temp (250 degrees) I've never seen it burn. As the dacquoise cooks longer, it will go from light cream to more tan, but it should never be brown. It should look like a pale shortbread cookie at it's darkest. If it's getting too dark, just turn the heat down to 225 degrees (but no lower than that). If it's done before 1 hour, you probably spread the dacquoise too thin, but that's ok. Just stop the cooking process early. A thin dacquoise will cook much faster than a thick one. If yours is done and feels dry and hard, just turn off the oven. If it's too brown, turn off the oven and take it out. Don't bother with the wooden spoon and letting it dry out further in the oven, just take it out, it's already overdone anyway. Just because it's brown, doesn't mean it is no good. Cut off a piece and try it. It should taste like light airy, crisp nut candy. It should not taste burned. If it tastes burned, unfortunately I would just throw it out. And just skip the dacquoise layer entirely.
In a pot:
2 cups of half and half (1 cup heavy cream + 1 cup milk)
heat until it is steaming
Meanwhile whisk in a bowl:
7 eggs yolks
1 whole egg
Add the steaming hot half and half to the whisked egg mixture gradually. Dump everything back into the pot and whisk it while it heats. Do not stop whisking, lest you burn the custard or it forms a skin at the bottom. It should get thicker and resemble a thick gravy or loose pudding. At that point turn off the heat and take it off the heat.
If you are unsure if the custard has lumps or burned pieces, put it through a sieve and strain out the lumps. If you were whisking the whole time and you're comfortable with it, just add the 10oz of white chocolate in it. I don't strain unless I know there is stuff stuck to the bottom of the pan. Whisk OFF THE HEAT until the chocolate has totally dissolved. The residual heat of the custard will melt the chocolate and the white chocolate will thicken the custard even further.
Dealing With Issues:
If you really messed up and did not whisk it or cooked it on too high heat, first taste it. If it tastes ok, but is lumpy or not smooth, you can vitamix it and it will be fine. If it tastes burned or like hard boiled eggs, throw it out and start over, you can't fix that gross taste.
Put plastic wrap directly on top of the cremeux (even though it's hot). If you don't cover it with plastic, a skin will form on the top as it cools.
Cool the cremeux in the fridge (4 hours minimum) or the freezer (for an hour or so). When it cools it will become completely set, but will remain flexible; it is pipe-able and moldable. Cremeux is custard meets ganache.
Soften 5 sheets of silver level gelatin in ice water. (If you don't use icy water, the gelatin will simply melt away into the liquid)
In a pot, heat 1/2 c mango puree
Once hot (it doesn't need to boil or anything), add the hydrated gelatin which should feel rubbery like seaweed.
If the gelatin still feels stiff, it needs more time to hydrate in the icy water.
Turn off the heat.
Whisk the gelatin in the hot mango puree until it has completely dissolved.
If the gelatin refuses to dissolve, turn the heat on again and keep whisking until it has dissolved.
If it still refuses to dissolve, add the other 1/2 cup of diced mango into the mixture as well (the extra liquid will help it to dissolve).
Cool the pot with all the mango puree and diced mango until the mixture is at least room temp.
In a stand mixer whip with the whisk attachment on medium high speed:
1 cup cold heavy whipping cream
4 Tbsp sugar
Whisk until you have whipped cream and soft peaks. You know it is done when you can see the whisk marks in the cream as it whirls around. If the cream starts to look grainy, STOP. Whipping it further will only make it grainier and curdle and eventually turn to butter.
Gradually add and fold in the cooled mango and gelatin mixture in with the whipped cream. If the whipped cream appears to be melting, then feel your mango mixture. Is it hot/warm? If so, you need to cool it down. You do not want to melt the whipped cream.
Put down parchment paper.
Start with the layer of dacquoise
Cut your sponge cake in half so that it is around the size of the dacquoise and stack it on top of the dacquoise.
Doesn't seem the same size? Just trim it so it's around the same size. If you have a ring mold or rectangle mold, now is the time to use those, but they are not necessary.
Scoop out half of the mango bavarois and spread it on top of the sponge cake. (You want it to be around 1/4" depth) Don't worry about spreading it perfectly all the way to the edge (you're going to trim off all the edges so messy or incomplete edges are not an issue). Now stick the whole thing in the freezer and freeze it for 10 minutes to set the bavarois. (Keep the other half of the bavarois in the fridge while you wait).
Add the next layer of sponge cake and then top with bavarois and put it in the freezer again to set the layers.
Cut open the lilikoi and scoop out the pulp and seeds. Using your fingers or using a fork, loosen the pulp with a motion like scrambling eggs. Spread that pulp across the frozen mango bavarois. It's tartness and freshness is an ideal complement to the sweet and creamy layers.
Return the layered entremet to the freezer
Prepare the piping bag with a large round hole tip (~808).
Using a butter knife add dabs of lilikoi concentrate around the inside of the bag (this will create the streaks in the cremeux)
How To Fill A Piping Bag:
Start with putting the tip inside.
Clip the bag so that when you put things inside, they don't slide out before you're ready to pipe.
Put the bag inside a cup
Turn the bag over the edge of the cup
Put the cremeux into the piping bag.
Take the entremet out of the freezer and trim it and cut it up into the serving sizes. Once it is set, it is extremely easy to cut clean lines and the layers are all easy to cut through. Generally entremet portions are small and for an individual. Cut off the edges so you're left with the gorgeous clean lines of the interior and figure out how best to get the portions you want out of the slab. I recommend 1"X 2.5" for petite servings. If you want large American sized dessert portions, cut them into 2"X 4" rectangles.
How To Cut:
Choose to cut all vertical first then all horizontal cuts, or vice versa.
Eg. measure 2.5" on one side, then 2.5" on the other side. Now you have score marks telling you where to start your knife and where to end it. If you need more markers, make another 2.5" mark in the middle. Once you cut that off, continue so that you have all the 2.5" batons.
Next, you will cut those batons into the smaller batons by marking it in 1' increments then cutting all of those to have the final entremet servings.
CAUTION:
When you move the entremet servings, careful, the bottom crust, the dacquoise is crisp and slippery because it's so smooth and dry. I've dropped a lot of them moving them from one place to another and the inertia just takes them flying off the spatula. They are very set use your fingers to grab and steady them, so they don't slide or fly off the spatula when you move them.
Close the top of the piping bag. Unclip the bottom of the piping bag. Keeping the tip and the bag vertical, practice piping the kisses on a plate. This is to get a feel for how large you want to make them and the feel for how to manipulate the bag. You want to fit three kisses on each entremet serving.
Piping method:
Make sure the top of the bag is twisted closed. I wind the extra top part around my thumb so that it is truly twisted shut - no contents will go out the wide end of the bag because it is twisted shut. Hold and squeeze the bag with your dominant hand, your other hand is just there to help guide the bag up and down - it does not squeeze.
Pipe by holding the tip 1/4"-1/2" above the surface, keep the tip in that position and squeeze, the cremeux will come out initially the diameter of the piping tip and then expand wider in diameter the longer you squeeze. The practice is to gauge how large you want to squeeze out the cremeux. Cremeux is extremely stable, so don't worry, it's not going to run, you can take your time. Once you achieve the diameter you want, STOP SQUEEZING. And with a decisive motion, simply lift the piping bag straight up. This will create the tapered kiss vertical tail. Repeat so that you have 3 kisses per serving.
In the photo above, I created the example kiss on the left and my partner practiced next to it, practicing and getting a feel for the piping bag. In this practice photo, I can point out some common mistakes and possible frustrations.
Common Mistakes and Frustrations:
The kisses ideally are next to each other but not squashing or overlaying on top of each other. A common mistake is to start the piping tip for the next kiss, right next to the first one. Remember, the kisses are going to expand, larger than the tip, so logically, you want to start the kiss at least a piping tip diameter away from the last one. Like plants that grow and expand, you don't plant seeds right next to each other. You space them out envisioning the room they need to grow. Piping is similar. Think about the diameter of the kiss and aim for the center of the next kiss you want to form. You can see in the photo that the kisses could be spaced out a little more.
Another common mistake is forgetting about how to pipe entirely. Instead of holding the bag vertically, some people hold it at an angle, like a pencil. If you hold it at an angle, your kiss will come out at an angle and the tail will not be vertical, but at the angle you are holding the bag.
The most noticeable frustration my partner had when making these were his were coming out like poop piles. With the poop emoji, the poop shape is pretty recognizable. The poop shape is created by starting at the bottom and squeezing then moving the piping bag up a hair and then squeezing again, then moving the piping tip in a circle at the end to finish off the tail. Poop shape! If you want a kiss shape and not a poop shape, there is only one level at which you squeeze the bag and that is the starting level. Once you are happy with the size of the kiss, commit to that and stop squeezing the bag. Simply stop squeezing then lift the bag straight up and the tail will form. If you squeeze as you lift, more poop shape squeezes will come out.
All in all, everything will still taste delicious mistakes and all. So if you're a first timer, or don't pipe often, take the time to practice on a plate and get a feel for how the cremeux comes out as you squeeze and move the bag.
For the extra vavoom, warm 125g dark chocolate in a dry glass container until softened. Using a dry whisk or fork, stir the softened chocolate until it is glossy, smooth and completely melted (no lumps or chunks). Using an offset spatula, spread the dark chocolate onto acetate or parchment paper. Put it in the freezer for 15 minutes to completely harden.
When hardened, bend the paper or acetate back to peel the chocolate off. Bend it in the opposite direction to snap it off. Pick up the shard by holding it on the edges, if you hold the chocolate on the flat side, your finger print will be there, and the chocolate will melt.
Arrange the shard on the top to create the look that you want. Serve straight out the fridge, or serve when you're done decorating. The many textures and flavors is what makes this entremet stunning to eat and look at.