Gluten Free French Marjolaine #GBBOGlutenFree

This nutty gluten free layered cake is made from meringues and with toasted almonds and hazelnuts!

 

Yield: 2 mini marjolaine cakes
Prep time: 30 minutes
Cook time: 45 minutes

Gluten Free French Marjolaine

Here's last week's #GBBOGlutenFree TechnicalChallenge offering! It's really yummy, although I think it's a bit of a nut overload and perhaps not worth all the effort you'll put into this recipe! If you watched the show, you'll know that the contestants and Mary baked a large marjolaine, but that was too big for a family of three, so I've cut the recipe down make these two smaller cakes that are much more manageable. Still, even with all the hard work, I'd say these are great for a special occasion but not an every day bake. They're surprisingly easy to make, although labour intensive!

Ingredients:

For the daquoise
6 grams cornflour
30 grams ground almonds
30 grams ground hazelnuts
60 grams egg whites
75 grams caster or superfine sugar

For the praline
25 grams ground pistachios and hazelnuts
25 ml water
75 grams caster or superfine sugar
vanilla buttercream

To assemble

chocolate ganache
vanilla buttercream
ground pistachios
Need a conversion? Use this handy chart.

The best bit of this recipe is the crunchy meringue layers. As I mentioned, I think it's a bit of a nut overkill. You can use homemade buttercream and ganache or shop bought to save time. It's been a crazy week here so I used shop bought ganache and buttercream and just folded the praline into some of the reserved buttercream.

French Marjolaine - #GBBOGlutenFree

Instructions:

1. Preheat the oven to 180c/350f.
2. Arrange the ground almonds and hazelnuts on a lined baking tray and toast in the oven for 10 minutes or until golden. You might need to stir the nuts every few minutes or so to prevent them from catching quickly and burning. Once toasted, scrape into a bowl and allow them to cool. Once cool, stir in 1/3 of the caster sugar and the cornflour.
3. Make meringues by whisking the egg whites and adding the remaining caster sugar until a stiff, glossy meringue is formed. Once the stiff peaks have been reached, fold in the toasted nuts, sugar and cornflour gently.
4. Reduce the oven to 150c/300f. Pipe the meringues into 10 rounds or into two shallow baking trays, ensuring that the meringues are level. Bake the meringues for 45 minutes until golden and firm. Turn off the oven and prop the door open with a wooden spoon and allow the meringues to cool fully. They'll continue to crisp up as the oven cools.
5. While the meringues cool, make the praline by toasting the pistachios and hazelnuts in a dry pan. While they toast, make a caramel with the sugar and water. Once the caramel reaches 170c, remove from the heat and carefully pour in the toasted nuts, coating them in the caramel. Pour onto a silicon mat and allow to set.
6. Remove the meringues from the oven when completely cool. Blitz the set praline in a food processor until it is ground to a fine powder. Combine this with some of the vanilla buttercream and set aside. 
7. Assemble the marjolaine by placing a daquoise meringue on a work surface and topping with chocolate ganache, then another daquoise meringue and top with some of the buttercream with the nuts mixed in. Continue until each marjolaine is five layers of meringue. Cover the entire marjolaine with the reserved buttercream (without any nuts in) and smooth for a neat finish. Top with a sprinkle of pistachios and serve.