It was a hot summer’s day and I was celebrating a good friend’s birthday and catching up with friends over some BBQ. Life was good at that moment until this amazing looking birthday cake appeared. Life went from good to great! The cake tastes too good to not share the recipe.

Ingredients

– 250 gm seedless watermelon, thinly and equally sliced
– 60 ml (1/4 cup) Rosewater (check out my DIY Rosewater)
– 4 tbsp Caster sugar
– 40 gm Almond meal

Almond Dacquoise

– 150gm almond, coarsely chopped
– 150gm Pure icing sugar, sieved
– 5 eggwhites
– 135gm caster sugar

Rose-scented Cream

– 300 ml thickened cream
– 30 mg caster sugar
– 2 tbsp rosewater

Method

To make the almond dacquoise, preheat oven to 180C. Process almonds in a food processor until finely ground, then combine in a bowl with icing sugar. Whisk eggwhites with electric mixer until soft peak form, then gradually add caster sugar and whisk until stiff peaks form. Gently fold through almond mixture.

Spread the mixture into equal sized oven tray (I used 20cmx30cm) lined with baking paper.

Bake until golden (10-15 minutes). Set aside to cool

Note: Originally, the mixture suppose to be spread into a bigger oven tray (eg: 30cmx40cm) and then cut half lengthways to make sure you have equal quality of dacquoise. However, because I used smaller sized tray, thus thicker layer, I lower the heat and let them stay in the oven for a longer period of time (180C for 25-30) so in the end you will have crispier dacquoise.

Now, lets go to the watermelon. arrange the slices in a single layer on a wire rack. Sprinkle them with 20ml of the rosewater and then scatter with 2 tbsp of sugar. Stand to macerate approximately for 30 minutes and them pat with paper towel.

While waiting for both to be ready, lets do the rose-scented cream. Whisk cream and sugar with an electric mixer until soft peaks form, gradually add rosewater and whisk until stiff peaks forms. Do not over whisk, keep an eye on the texture!