The dacquoise recipe is a classic of French pastry-making. It’s a soft and truly delicious almond-flavored biscuit. It’s quite simple to make and serves as the base for many desserts. You can create a wonderful cake by layering dacquoise biscuits with cream filling.
It’s gluten-free and requires just 3 ingredients for preparation: almond flour, egg whites and powdered sugar. The dacquoise biscuit is one of the fundamental biscuits taught early on in pastry schools.
Dacquoise recipe
It’s the biscuit I use most often to make entremets and other fairly simple cakes. As much as sponge cake is essential to make a good fraisier strawberry cake or a black forest cake, dacquoise is essential for the raspberry cake or the praline success cake. Dacquoise, even enjoyed on its own, is delicious and flavorful.
With just a few ingredients, you can create a delicious cake at an affordable price and with an incomparable taste when made at home with love, whether it’s for a birthday cake or a dessert like this strawberry dacquoise tart.
Some dacquoise recipes contain a small amount of flour or cornstarch. I leave it out to keep the cookie super soft.
Almond dacquoise
What we like about the dacquoise recipe
Table of Contents
- Flavor variations (almond, hazelnut, coconut).
- Used in many desserts.
- Easy to make with just a few ingredients.
- Soft and slightly crunchy.
- A macaroon-like texture.
Indeed, you can choose to make an almond dacquoise or replace the almond flour with coconut or hazelnut flour. It’s a gluten-free biscuit, which is very appreciated by those who have an intolerance.
It’s a very simple base that you won’t be able to do without for many recipes.
The dacquoise biscuit is soft with a thin crispy shell if dusted with powdered sugar before baking, which is not necessary if all you want is a soft texture.
Ingredients Details
Almond flour : Use blanched almond powder (with peeled almonds) or almonds meal (with skin). Store-bought almond powder works well. For almond powder with the skin on, simply grind almonds with the skin until you get a fine powder. If you want an extra fine texture, mix it with sugar the second time you grind it. There’s no need to sift it.
You can also prepare homemade almond flour.
Egg whites : No need to age them overnight like for macarons. Dacquoise is not as temperamental. However, as with most recipes, they will whip better if they are at room temperature. Take them out of the refrigerator 1 to 2 hours before using them.
Icing Sugar : Do not confuse it with granulated sugar, which is coarse sugar. Icing sugar will be intimately mixed with the almond powder to form what is called in pastry jargon: the “tant pour tant”.
The term is quite clear, equal parts almond powder and icing sugar by weight. It’s the same principle as in macaron recipes.
A small amount of granulated sugar (about 1/3 of the icing sugar) is used to stabilize the whipped egg whites. It is added in three parts once the whites are foamy and the whisk of the mixer begins to leave traces.
Dacquoise variations
You can enhance the flavor of your biscuit by adding vanilla, lemon zest, cinnamon, or tonka bean. Try to stay close to the flavors of the dessert or cake in which it will be the base.
Replace part or all of the almond flour with hazelnut powder, pistachio powder, or grated coconut.
Add crushed toasted hazelnuts to the batter or sprinkle them on top of the batter before baking. This will add crunchiness for extra indulgence.
You can take it a step further by replacing a small amount of almond flour with speculoos powder.
Preparation steps
NB : Find the detailed recipe with ingredients below.
1. Begin by taking the eggs out of the refrigerator at least 1 hour before starting. You can separate the yolks from the whites and let them come to room temperature.
2. Preheat your oven. The biscuit is baked at a high temperature to ensure quick cooking, keeping the interior moist.
3. Whisk together the almond flour and icing sugar with a whisk. If there are any lumps, sift the mixture.
4. Place the egg whites in the bowl of the mixer and whisk them, starting at medium speed. When they become frothy, gradually add some of the granulated sugar. Increase the speed and add the remaining sugar in two parts until you get a stiff meringue.
Meringue for dacquoise cookies
5. Add the tant pour tant (almond flour and powdered sugar) to the meringue. 
6. Gently fold it in from bottom to top using a spatula to avoid deflating the beaten egg whites.
7. Add chopped hazelnuts if desired, but this is optional. You can also add lemon zest, vanilla seeds, etc., to complement the flavors of your dessert.
I prefer to stick to the traditional dacquoise recipe most of the time to maintain the pronounced taste of almonds, hazelnuts, or coconut.
make a dacquoise cookie
You can see how I crush the hazelnuts. This quantity is for several dacquoises.
8. Pipe the biscuit mixture onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Dust the top with powdered sugar if you want a crispy crust on top. This step is optional.
9. Bake while keeping an eye on the color, which should remain pale, slightly golden. You can check the baking with a skewer, which should come out clean. The biscuit should remain soft.
10. Remove from the oven and transfer to a wire rack. Cut to the desired dimensions. Here, adjust with a 20 cm cake ring.
Below is a dacquoise baked on a baking sheet and then cut for individual entremets.
Cut out the dacquoise cookie
French dacquoise recipe
Ingredients :
- For a 20 cm (8 in )dacquoise
- 75 g (2.6 oz ) almond or hazelnut flour
- 75 g (2.6 oz) icing sugar
- 30 g (1 oz ) granulated sugar
- 100 g (3.5 oz ) egg whites
- Chopped toasted hazelnuts optional
Instructions :
- Preheat the oven to 190°C (374°F).
- Sift the almond flour and powdered sugar.
- Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gradually add the granulated sugar towards the end. Continue beating until you achieve a beautiful firm meringue that forms a bird's beak on the whisk.
- Gently fold in the tant pour tant (almond powder and icing sugar) into the egg whites little by little, working from bottom to top with a spatula.
- Work gently to avoid deflating the meringue.
- Optionally, add some roasted and crushed hazelnuts to the mixture. This will add extra crunch to the dacquoise.
- Draw a 20 cm (7.87 in) circle on parchment paper and turn it over onto the baking sheet.
- Pipe your mixture starting from the center and spiraling outwards. You can also spread it on a baking sheet and then cut out the shape you want.
- Dust with powdered sugar using a sieve twice, 3 minutes apart.
- Bake for 20-25 minutes, keeping an eye on the color, which should remain pale.
- Check for doneness with a skewer; the dacquoise should stay soft.
- Adjust the sides with the 20 cm (7.87 in) cake ring and let it cool.
- You can prepare it well in advance and freeze it alone or with a crispy praline feuilletine layer.
Thank you for your visit to my pastry blog and your comments.
pastry, base for entremets, almonds, sponge cake, hazelnuts, dacquoise cookie