My very first TWD effort........

When I first came across TWD - man, was I excited!    A chance to try new things, learn from others with a shared passion, share my results (in a virtual way anyways) with other lovers of baking and practice, practice, practice!

The first recipe I came to when I flipped open BFMHTY for the first time was Coconut Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise.   I loved the picture and thought it looked like an great summer dessert except for the meringue part (I have never been a fan of meringue other than when it is on Lemon Meringue Pie).   How cool would it be to make this my first attempt as a member of TWD!?

Not only has everyone moved on the The Party Cake - I have to admit that I basically cheated on the entire recipe yesterday - not exactly what I had planned for my first attempt.   The name I came up with for my attempt was “faux-quoise - it didn’t seem fair to call my attempt a “duquoise”.   

Changes I made were:

• Meringue - there was no way I was going to turn on the oven for three hours in the middle of our current humidity and heat wave.    I substituted baked puff pastry squares that had been brushed with an egg mixture and then sprinkled with the coconut blend.
  
• White Chocolate Ganache - not being a huge fan of white chocolate in big doses, a stabilized whip cream was used between the layers.
  
• (Fresh) Pineapple - there wasn’t one to be found anywhere in the local retailers that even seemed to be anything close to “fresh”.   They were all green, hard as a rock and absolutely NO pineapple smell.   I went with canned chunks (I meant to get rings).
• Since I didn’t get enough pineapple, I also used a quickly made sauce using dark cherries that I had in the freezer.

To my surprise - the end result was pretty good and it seems that we have a new summer dessert to enjoy here on E Street!    I have been thinking that the “faux-quoise” would be pretty tasty with a sauce made from fresh strawberries, raspberries or blueberries - maybe even a mixture of all three!