Hazelnut dacquoise

I made this hazelnut dacquoise to go into a fancy cake. These two layers were sandwiched into the middle of a vanilla cake, layered with a cooked vanilla frosting. (I think a mousse would be better, but this cake was for a frosting-lover.)

I used my recipe for meringue, and added some ground hazelnuts. (I was inspired by this recipe for peanut dacquoise.) I think I might've overbaked them a bit -- next time I might do closer to an hour rather than an hour and a half. In the finished cake, the dacquoise tasted fantastic and added a really interesting texture. It didn't soften as much as I expected -- this is where I think that baking for a shorter time might help. Anyway, overall the verdict was: delicious!

UPDATE: Bake for 1.5 hours, then turn off the oven and leave them in there until completely cool / overnight. After being in the oven overnight, they had started to soften slightly. Once in the cake, layered with frosting/mousse, they softened completely. Perfect!

Dacquoise:

120 g water
100 g caster sugar
pinch of cream of tartar
vanilla
2.3 g versawhip 600k
1 g xanthan gum
1.2 g agar powder
1 cup hazelnut meal

1. Mix everything but the vanilla and hazelnut in a pot and bring to the boil. (I seem to remember some problems with clumping, so hit it with the stick blender if need be.)
2. After it's boiled for a little bit (activating the agar), take it off the heat and add vanilla.
3. Whip the mixture (using a stand mixer) until you have a thick foam. It should form a large blob on the whisk when you lift the mixer head.
4. Fold in the hazelnut.
5. Draw circles the diameter of your cake on parchment paper, and split the dacquoise mixture accordingly. I was making a small cake (about 18cm/7 inch), and made two circles. The dacquoise spreads out as it cooks -- you end up trimming them to get them back to the right size.
6. Bake at 130 C (275 F) for at least an hour. When they are done, they should have taken on some colour, and will be dry to the touch but still soft. [UPDATE: Bake for 1.5 hours, then leave to cool in the turned-off oven.]
7. Let them cool. Trim to the appropriate size. Eat all the offcuts.
8. Layer into your cake with frosting/cream/mousse. Let it sit for a while before you serve -- the idea is that the frosting softens the dacquoise a bit, making it deliciously chewy.