Hey there!  Did you have a FABULOUS Thanksgiving, fellow United States people?  And non-United States people – did you have a FABULOUS Thursday, the 24th?  I surely hope so (we did – and don’t call us Shirley).

Despite my grand goals of again having another Thanksgiving Dessert Bonanza for my family, I instead opted to be laid out by an illness.  I thought it’d be more fun spending my holiday incapacitated by disease than enjoying it with food  and family.  Can’t say it worked out in my favor.

But not to fear!  I am again back in time (amazing!) for a Daring Baker’s challenge!  This month featured some fancy Filipino desserts.  Specifically for me, the Sans Rival!

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.

There were additional optional desserts to create, but being a lazy baker with limited time on my hands, I opted for a solo sans rival.  Woo woo!

Sans rival is basically a cake of layered crispy meringue and french buttercream frosting.  My understanding is that it’s supposed by be crunchy and sweet, and just a little nutty because cashews are mixed into the meringue.  It was a really interesting challenge!

Here you can see the meringue I whipped up with the cashews mixed in.  I actually hadn’t bought enough cashews, so I think my meringue layers weren’t as nutty as they were supposed to be.

The sans rival contains 4 layers of meringue and another 4 layers of the buttercream.  Here you can see my first 2 layers baking up in my oven.  Unfortunately for me and my corner-cutting ways, the layers were supposed to be 9″ each, but since I didn’t have 9″ pans, I went ahead and used some random approximately 8″ pans I did have.  Of course, I didn’t think to compensate for the amount of meringue I was baking, so while my first two thinner layers came out alright, my second two significantly thicker layers came out much more akin to quiches than baked meringues.  Whoops. >.>

Because of this my “normal” sans rival became instead a mini one…only two layers.

After putting the toasty meringue laayers together I got to do the easy part: french buttercream!  I’m at a point where I could almost make it with my eyes closed, but it’s always nice to see a variation on ingredients.  Layered them together and what did I get?  A chocolate sans rival!

What did I think of the dessert?  I thought it was…well, interesting.  As I mentioned before I don’t think I did it exactly right – obviously I was missing 2 extra layers of meringue, plus I’m pretty sure the layers I did have should have been crunchier, but it was sweet and tasty with a different texture from your “normal” cakes.  Would I make it again?  Probably not.  But it was still cool to get some new cultural dishes throw into my repertoire!

Sans Rival Recipe & More

Lookit here!