Catherine of Munchie Musings was our November Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make a traditional Filipino dessert – the delicious Sans Rival cake! And for those of us who wanted to try an additional Filipino dessert, Catherine also gave us a bonus recipe for Bibingka which comes from her friend Jun of Jun-blog.
I decided to focus on just the Sans Rival for now. The more specialized ingredients for the Bibingka were too much for me at this point.
While not quite as intimidating as my first Daring Bakers challenge, I was still a bit nervous. I've made meringue numerous times before, but in my current place they never turn out quite as I'd like them to. It could be that it's just far too humid down here in the summer to attempt meringue. So I was excited that this challenge was for a month where it's not humid here.
The traditional recipe calls for cashews, and I tried, really I did. But I just couldn't like them enough to devote an entire cake to them. So I went with almonds instead. We were also given multiple options for flavoring the icing, I went with chocolate. Because, well, we all know how I feel about chocolate don't we?
The end result was pretty good, though it took me a few tastes to decide that I did indeed like the cake. I think I would also make the nuts that go into the meringue even more finely processed next time, as for me, it was a little disconcerting to have chunks of something in a meringue.
I also hear back that I could have used an even darker chocolate for the buttercream to cut the sweetness a little. Seeing as I used unsweetened, I'm not really sure where I'd go from there. Perhaps add a different flavoring to it?
Sans Rival Cake
makes 1 four layer, 9-inch cake
Meringue
10 egg whites, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp cream of tartar
2 cups chopped almonds - I just dumped mine into a food processor for a bit
Preheat the oven to 325°.
Line cake pans with parchment paper, as well as buttering and flouring the sides. I didn't have four cake pans so I traced two nine inch circles onto parchment paper to use as guides in order to bake the meringue on cookie sheets.
Beat the egg whites at a medium speed until foamy, should take a few minutes. Add the cream of tartar and slowly add the sugar, a little at a time. Once all the sugar has been added, continue to beat the mixture, at high speed, for 10 minutes - or until stiff, shiny peaks form.
Fold in most of the almond, keeping some out for decorating the cake at the end.
Divide the meringue evenly between the four layers, and bake for 30 minutes - or until golden brown. Don't be afraid to let this get nice and golden. I probably ended up turning the oven off a little too soon.
Once the meringues are nice and golden, turn off the oven and let sit for fifteen minutes or so. Then remove from the oven. Remove the meringues from the parchment - be careful with this, meringue is fragile!
Then return the meringues back to the oven and let them sit in there for a good hour or so. This is supposed to help them crisp up.
Buttercream
5 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1 1/4 cups unsalted butter, room temperature
2 oz unsweetened chocolate - melted
Beat the egg yolks on high until they have doubled in volume and turn a lemon yellow. I usually just go by the color, judging when something has 'doubled' has always troubled me.
Place the sugar and water in a pot and cook over medium heat, dissolving the sugar. Keep cooking until the mixture reaches 235°.
While mixing on high, slowly add the sugar mixture to the egg yolks. Hot sugar can be bad news so be very very careful with this step!
Continue on high speed until the mixture reaches room temperature, about 15 minutes. And this is why I love stand mixers... set it and forget it (sort of).
Once it has reached room temperature, add in the butter and flavoring. Refrigerate this for at least an hour, whipping it again right before use.
Assembly
Put a dab of buttercream in the center of whatever you'll be using to plate your cake. Place the first layer of meringue down. Add a thin layer of buttercream on top of that.
Repeat with the remaining layers of meringue. I trimmed the meringue layers during this process. Taking away bits of edges and adding in little bits of extra meringue as needed.
Ice the entire cake once you are done layering. Use the remaining nuts as decoration, pressing them to the sides of the cake.
