Recently, I had reason to make a cake.

Recently, I had reason to make a cake. So I made an apricot almond dacquoise. Dacquoise is just meringue layers with ground nuts in. In this case, almonds. I still have apricot jam I made from our trees, and wanted to do things with it, so I thought this could be an interesting way to use the jam.

I made the meringue layers, let them dry, coated them with a thin layer of melted dark chocolate, let them dry. I drained the apricot jam overnight in a sieve to get rid of any excess moisture, rather than cooking it down because I didn't want any caramelizing that would change the taste or color. I crushed up amaretti, and I made the stabilized whipped cream.

I noticed when I was whipping the cream that it seemed oddly watery, which is a thing that can happen more commonly in the spring when what the cows are eating has higher water content. Never expected it in the fall. It made it harder to whip. I should have taken this as a hint and let it drain in a sieve, even with the gelatin (which is the stabilizer) before I assembled the cake, but oh well, next time.

I candied some dried apricots for making pretty on the outside and I was pretty happy with the way they turned out. You can see the step by step assembly, bottom up. The watery cream had an impact in that the stabilization didn't work as well as it usually does, so only chilling the cake for 4 hours didn't firm it up as it should have, and that showed when I cut it.

Nevertheless, it tasted great, and the texture was great, and while I would pay more attention to the cream behavior next time, and possibly use a tad bit less almond extract (or use amaretto liqueur) to balance flavor a little more precisely, you definitely got all the almond and apricot flavors, complemented by a little dark chocolate, and a really nice contrast of textures.