Daring Bakers are Without Rival

 

Blog-checking lines: Catherine of Munchie Musings was our November Daring Bakers’ host and she challenged us to make a traditional Filipino dessert – the delicious Sans Rival cake! And for those of us who wanted to try an additional Filipino dessert, Catherine also gave us a bonus recipe for Bibingka which comes from her friend Jun of Jun-blog.

This was a fun and completely stress-free challenge to participate in. While I’ve only yet done the Sans Rival portion of the challenge, I have every intention of doing the bibingka later today. My only regret is that I won’t have the banana leaves for it. For the Sans Rival, I went ahead and did the recipe as instructed, in that I used cocoa. However, for the ground nut, I used almonds in place of cashews, and did not toast it before folding into the meringue, as I didn’t want the toasty color to mar the color of the meringue. And, as desired, the meringues came out of the oven a lovely, light golden color. However, once we cut into it, I saw that the inside was more affected by the cocoa than I thought it might be. So, that was exactly as planned, but no matter.

I made this into half a recipe, as a 9-inch cake would have taken forever to eat. As it is, my mother decided to make cream puffs today, so it’s a lucky thing I had a 6-inch cake to serve! I made a mint filling, tinted light green, and rather than using egg yolks, I used some of the excess egg whites we had in the refrigerator (in fact, this whole project was made with leftover egg whites).  I folded some whipped cream into the egg white base, and it was lovely. The only problem was that my filling was too soft–I whipped them into submission, but for some reason, they weren’t holding stiff peaks. Might it be because I used the egg beater rather than the stand mixer? I don’t know, but for the meringue for the cake, I did not have that problem, and the only real difference between the two beatings was the mixer…

I used toasted almonds for the sides of the cake, and poured ganache over the top. And yesterday was my dad’s birthday, so the timing really couldn’t have been better. We ate half the cake fresh, and the mint filling is so reminiscent of mint ice cream, that we decided to freeze the other half and have it as a faux ice cream cake tomorrow. By then, the crispy crunch of the meringue layers will be long gone, so it will probably be more of a cold mint-chocolate explosion.

Later today, I’ll add (hopefully!) the bibingka portion of the challenge. I am so looking forward to it!

I made the bibingka this afternoon, and loved it. It was a simple matter of  beating together eggs, coconut milk, and melted butter; whisking together rice flour and glutinous rice flour, sugar, and baking powder; and them mixing the dry ingredients into the beaten wet ingredients.

Once the batter was done, they went into large ramekins (which I forgot to butter), and topped with slices of basket cheese.

They then baked for about 30 minutes (even though the recipe called for 20-25 minutes–but my ramekins were larger).

 

Once cooked all the way through, the tops were brushed with melted butter, and then broiled in the oven for a couple minutes (be careful with this step–it’s very easy to end up with charred tops!).

Once they came out of the oven, I sprinkled them with the coconut/sugar mixture.

This is one of the most delicious cakes I’ve ever ate. It’s almost like a Lady Baltimore cake, but with an even more delicate, wonderfully moist (but definitely not gummy) crumb. When I make this again, and I most certainly will, I want to make this in a regular cake pan, split it into layers, fill with jam, and top with jam and coconut. I’d also play up the coconut flavor with a bit of coconut extract, and top with pineapple chunks rather than cheese (or the salted eggs) before baking.

I am so glad I made this cake! All you Daring Bakers who didn’t get around to it yet: get around to it! You won’t be disappointed!

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