am behind for posting the Tuesday with Dorie group baking event but I did not want to be left out baking the Coconut-Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise on pages 293-295 of Dorie Greenspan's cookbook, Baking from my home to yours. Andrea from the blog Andrea in the Kitchen chose the dessert for the last week.You see, I am finishing college finals, working, commuting, and trying to test look and drive vehicles for my daughter's first car. I promised her a vehicle with a cd player soooo is anyone out there selling a tank with full armor AND a built in cd player? I would prefer the tank to have a remote control device for me and a camera I can take with me; you know, to have that added protection. Motherly advise is appreciated =).
I scheduled in the Dacquoise to be baked over Father's Day Weekend and I tell you everything I touched went wrong. Hubby just build a new cedar deck and I tried to burn it down. I have a briquette BBQ on the deck and first I could not get the grill up to temperature grilling BBQ chicken; 6 hours later...dark outside...I am still not getting 185 degrees for the internal temperature of the chicken. I was using indirect heat. Pitch dark out; I go into the house and hear owl noises. Hubby goes out and checks then comes back into the house and explains that we have a huge owl sitting not far from our front door. I go out onto the deck and before I can start looking for the owl, I see yellow, bright light out of the corner of my eye. A briquette, red hot, fell out of the side vent of the grill and proceeded to start the wood smoldering and have slight flames. There is now a charcoaled, burnt mark on one of his slats of wood. I do not think I could apologize more and still feel absolutely horrible.
I had pork spareribs in the refrigerator with a dry rub for a back-up on Sunday and we got thunder storms and torrential downpours of rain all day for Father's Day. The TWD dacquoise did not get made. Instead, I worked on the TWD project over the last to evenings, between getting home from work and writing a paper.
The ingredients for the Meringue.
Sifting the powdered sugar before getting started whipping the egg whites.
Whipped egg whites waiting for the processed coconut, almonds, and cornstarch to be added.
The meringues are smoothed into 6 x 12 inch rectangle shapes and ready to start slowly baking at 225 degrees.
Broiling the pineapple sections and getting cute little dark brown and black spots.
Baking meringues for 3 hours is a long wait but the golden brown hue with all the little coconut and almond pieces throughout was a pretty sight. After cooling the sheets, picking the crispy meringues up and using them as building blocks is a satisfying process. The white chocolate ganache, with all 3 cups of heavy cream, was started on as soon as the two sheets of meringues went into the oven. I had grand plans of finishing the whole dessert in one night, and of course this did not happen.
Picking a fresh, ripe pineapple is not hard if you know to pull at the pointy leaves. If the leaves pull out easy, the pineapple is ripe. If you can not get a leaf to pull out, leave the pineapple behind and try another. See, easy!
I cut my pineapple into slices, then used a doughnut hole cutter to cut the center core piece out. Slicing the pineapple into quarters, drying the sections with paper towels, and laying the dried sections onto aluminum foiled jelly roll pans is quite the process. I did like the little black marking the broiling process achieved. Very nice!
I am not a huge pineapple dessert person but hubby is. I love pineapple eaten in chunks, fresh, so what fruit was left over was all mine. Thank you Andrea for picking a recipe that would add new experiences and challenges. I really enjoyed the process!
While assembling the dessert, this is what we ate
for dinner: Ham and Potato Swiss Cheese Soup. I absolutely love the hardiness of the soup. The recipe does call for half-n-half and heavy cream but any type of milk will work just fine. The base is started with 64 ounces of chicken broth. There will be a large pot of soup to share, enough for about 8 to 10 people, depending on how hardy each person eats =).Ham and Potato Swiss Cheese Soup
Ingredients:
4-16 oz. cans chicken broth
2 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes cubed
1 yellow onion, sliced thin
1 leek sliced thin
4 cups half-n-half
1 cup shredded Swiss cheese
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese
1 ham steak cubed
2 Tbs. green onions, diced
freshly ground pepper to taste
Directions:
Heat a 12- inch skillet add cubed ham cook for for 10 minutes on medium heat, and sit aside.
Pour chicken broth into a pot, and put in potatoes, onions, and leek. Cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes or until potatoes are tender.
Add the remaining ingredients and simmer for approximately 20 minutes. Top with diced green onions.