Coconut Grapefruit Sans Rival

Do you sometimes have trouble paying attention when you are baking? I have trouble paying attention at the best of times, but making this dessert was more difficult than it needed to be because I was in space cadet mode. I blame it on all the kindergarten I taught this week--many little kids and their snowsuits and winter accessories turn my brain to mush. I only decided to make this dessert at the last minute, as I was worried it would be too rich and too sweet (it is basically buttered meringue, after all). To balance the sweetness a bit, I made a grapefruit curd to add to the buttercream. I reduced the grapefruit juice by half, which meant that the curd was a bit too bitter on its own, but it was perfect in the buttercream: difficult to identify, but encouraging another taste to figure out the mystery ingredient. Too bad I only had pink grapefruits--red ones would have made for a prettier frosting.

I made a small version of this, using 5 eggs in total: 2 for the curd, 3 whites for the dacquoise and 3 yolks for the buttercream. The original recipe calls for 10 egg whites and 5 yolks for 12 servings, but I got 8 servings from my mini version (13x13x6.5cm). Instead of baking it in pans, I traced a paper CD envelope onto the foil using a chopstick. I wanted to pipe the meringue mixture, but I got two, yes two, yolks in the meringue so it wasn't the most durable stuff. I started out well, separating the first egg neatly. Then, who knows what happened, but I cracked the next egg with such force and flung it in the bowl before noticing that I had mixed yolks and whites, and the yolk was broken. Oops. I scooped it out and did the very same thing with the next egg. This yolk was really broken up and I was unable to remove it all from the whites. I considered pitching the whole thing but I was out of eggs. So, with a few choice words, I started beating the whites anyway. It worked rather well, and I got fairly stiff peaks. So, I folded in a pile of unsweetened coconut and that's when I got a bit worried. Rather than manhandle (Maryhandle?) it any more by putting it in a piping bag, I quickly spread it with a palette knife, got it in the oven and hoped for the best. It was fine, so don't panic about a tiny bit of yolk in your egg whites!

I halved this piece to make 2 servings

The French buttercream was easy to make, and not as fussy as the meringue one I usually choose. I always find that moment when you are beating the butter in and it finally comes together a bit off-putting. It's when the bowl of beaten yolks (or whites) begins to look exactly like a bowl of beaten butter. That's when I start to calculate just how much butter will be in every piece and how many pieces I am likely to eat. 2 tablespoons, in case you were wondering, and totally worth a brisk walk or ten. I'll always choose real buttercream over that nasty, gritty powdered sugar stuff.

Putting it together was easy enough, except that the kitchen was quite warm by this time and frosting each layer pushed the ones below off kilter. I eventually got it somewhat straight, so I just left it alone, intending to fix it up the next day. That didn't happen. Instead, I added a few flakes of fresh coconut and dug in. I don't think my Sans Rival is going to rival any of the beauties you'll find on the Daring Kitchen, but it tasted great! Thanks to Catherine for a fun challenge. Now, what to do with the extra buttercream and grapefruit curd???

Full challenge PDF with photos and recipes.

Blog-checking lines: 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.