TWD - Coconut-Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise

This week's Tuesday with Dorie recipe is the Coconut-Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise, chosen by Andrea of Andrea in the Kitchen. It is three layers of meringue (the dacquoise) sandwiched together with white chocolate ganache and layered with roasted pineapple.

Once again, this is a dish that I would not have chosen of my own accord, as I was skeptical about the flavours (pineapple desserts never call "eat me!" at my house). However, I enjoyed the melded flavours of the finished product.

I made a few tweaks here and there to the recipe. I ended up with not quite enough pineapple by about 3 wedges, as I only bought half a pineapple. I also made dacquoise layers that were slightly thinner than recommended by Dorie, as neither my baking trays or oven would take two layers side by side measuring 6 inches across. Because I don't have a broiler, I just roasted my pineapple in the oven for around 20 minutes, and I sprinkled it with granulated sugar because I was out of icing sugar (having used it all in the dacquoise). I also used 2/3 light cream and 1/3 heavy cream in the ganache, which meant that it perhaps did not become as stable as it should have. However, I was happy enough with the result.

Here is one of my dacquoise layers:

and the roasted pineapple:

plus the toasted coconut (which was toastier than I intended because I wasn't paying attention, but it smelt delicious):

and the white chocolate ganache:

which components are layered like so:

to produce the coconut-roasted pineapple dacquoise featured at the top of this post.

This was rather a marathon dessert to make, with the meringue layers taking 3 hours to bake at very low temperature, the ganache taking 3 hours to set, and the assembled cake needing 4-6 hours to set. For this reason, I am unlikely to make this again. However, I did learn the finer points of cutting up a pineapple (which I have never done before).

If you plan to make this dacquoise, you will need to start early in the day, or make the meringue layers and ganache one day and finish it the next. Do leave the finished dessert in the fridge for the specified time, because it allows the layers to soften and meld together so that you can truly appreciate the combination of flavours.

Thanks to Andrea for being our host this week. You can check out what everyone else thought of this dessert by checking out the Tuesdays with Dorie blogroll.