Sans Rival Cake with Pistachios and White Chocolate (Filipino)

At first glance, it seems odd that Sans Rival is a traditional Filipino dessert, being that all of its components are decidedly French. This is a cake made of dacquoise discs - meringue mixed with nuts and baked until crisp - layered with French buttercream frosting and decorated with more nuts (traditionally cashews). Apparently, in the 1920s and 30s, many Filipinos went abroad to study and those who ended up in France brought home the French language and pastry chef techniques that originated the Sans Rival. Sans Rival means "without rival" meaning unrivaled, and it's a pretty appropriate name: this is a delicious, rich, decadent dessert.

Rather than the traditional cashew dacquoise with plain French buttercream, this is pistachio dacquoise (which meant shelling almost a pound of pistachios.) with white chocolate lemon buttercream. I'd made a dacquoise before, but not French buttercream, which is egg yolks beaten with hot sugar syrup and then mixed with soft butter (kind of like a Swiss meringue buttercream, but a slightly different technique). OH MY GOD is French buttercream ever good. It tastes just like cookie dough at the stage where you've creamed together the butter, sugar, and eggs, before you've added the flour - but in frosting form (I know you're not supposed to eat raw eggs, but that's my favourite part of making cookies.). Rich, buttery, just delicious. Next time, rather than adding any flavours, I might just leave it plain because it was so yummy on its own.

Dacquoise:
5 egg whites
½ tsp cream of tartar
½ cup granulated sugar
1 cup pistachios, finely chopped

White Chocolate Lemon French Buttercream:
3 egg yolks
½ cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp. water
½ cup + 2 Tbsp. unsalted butter, softened, cubed
2 oz white chocolate, melted, cooled but still pourable
½ lemon, freshly zested
½ tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 tsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed

Decoration:
¾ cup pistachios, roughly chopped, for sides of cake

Preheat an oven to 325°F (165°C/140°C fan, Gas Mark 3).

Make the Dacquoise:
In a mixer bowl, beat the egg whites on medium speed until foamy. Sprinkle with cream of tartar. Slowly add granulated sugar.

Increase the speed to high and beat until stiff peaks form, 7-10 minutes. Fold in the pistachios.

Line 2 baking trays with parchment paper and trace two 6" circles on each. Turn the paper over so the pen or pencil markings are facing down and very lightly grease the paper. Fill a pastry bag with the pistachio-meringue mixture and using the circle outlines as a guide, pipe four 6" disks on the parchment paper. Try to make them as even and flat as possible.

Bake the dacquoises in the oven for 30 minutes, rotating half-way through, until golden brown and crispy. Turn off the oven, crack open the door, and leave the dacquoises in there for 30 more minutes. When the time is up, carefully peel the dacquoises off the parchment paper, flip them over, and return them to the cooling oven for another 30 minutes. Remove them from the oven to a rack to cool completely.

White Chocolate Lemon French Buttercream Frosting:
Make just enough to fill and frost the cake. If you would prefer a more generous amount of buttercream, increase the egg yolks to 5 and double the other ingredients.

In a mixer bowl, beat the egg yolks on high speed until very thick and pale yellow.

Meanwhile, combine sugar and water in a small saucepan over medium heat. Bring to a boil and cook to 235˚F. Remove from the heat. With the mixer still on high, carefully pour the hot syrup in a thin stream into the egg yolks. Try to avoid pouring the syrup over the beater, as it will spatter the syrup all over the sides of the bowl where it will harden, rather than mixing into the egg yolks.

Keep beating on high for several minutes until the mixture is light and creamy, then reduce speed to medium-low until the mixture is room temperature and the mixer bowl is cool to the touch, at least 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, set out butter to soften.

When the egg yolk mixture is completely cool, turn the mixer speed to high and beat in the softened butter, one cube at a time. Keep beating until all the butter is added and the mixture becomes a fluffy, creamy, frosting.

Add the melted white chocolate, lemon zest, vanilla and lemon juice. Beat until combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed.

Refrigerate for at least 1 hour to firm up the buttercream, then beat again for a few minutes before frosting the cake.

To Assemble the Sans Rival:
Place a dacquoise disc on a cake plate, protected with waxed paper. Spread with a thin layer of frosting. Repeat with remaining dacquoise layers, then frost the top and sides of the cake.

Press about ¾ cup roughly chopped pistachios onto the sides of the cake.

Refrigerate for at least 3 hours before serving. Cut into slices with a serrated knife. The longer you let the cake sit (up to 5 days, covered, in the fridge), the less crunchy/more chewy the layers will become. Leftovers can be wrapped in plastic and frozen.

Makes one 6" round cake. To make a 9" round cake, double the recipe.