This months Daring Bakers challenge is Filipino desserts. The challenge listed two desserts from the Philippines - a cake called Sans Rival and a dessert called Bibingka. The idea of making a Filipino dessert did appeal to me. I went to the Philippines several years ago and loved it. The people there are great and it was one of the best "food" countries I have been too. They have a wonderful mix of different cultures foods along with their own. I had a bunch of desserts their but I do not remember seeing either of these. I wasn't too excited about the Sans Rival since it didn't really look like something I would like and I was thinking of making just the Bibingka - but the challenge said the Sans Rival was the mandatory part of the challenge. November 14th was my wife's Birthday and the Sans Rival looked better to her that the Bibingka so I decided to go ahead and try it.
I think Sans Rival means without rival in French - kind of a big claim to make. It is basically just a frosted cake, only layers of meringue are used instead of cake. I made half a recipe and I also left the nuts out of the filling for my wife. Other than the fact that it is a little tricky to frost half a round cake - the cake came together very easily. I wasn't really expecting much from the Sans Rival but it was much better than I thought it would be. The meringue cake held up well and provided a nice light contrast to the rich buttercream frosting.
I was really looking forward to trying the second dessert, the Bibingka. As much as I was looking forward to it, I think my wife was the opposite - cheese in dessert like this did not sound good to her. The recipe had a few different choices for the topping of the dessert. The salted egg (an egg left in saltwater at room temperature for several weeks) sounded interesting but I didn't really have time to make it and I was pretty sure if my wife didn't want the cheese there was zero percent chance of getting her to eat salted egg on top. This was another easy dessert - only a couple of ingredients mixed together and cooked in a ramekin lined with a banana leaf. The Bibingka was delicious and even my wife agreed. I would describe it as a cake/custard. It could be made without the banana leaf but the leaf does give it some flavor and makes for an elegant presentation.
Thanks to Catherine of Munchie Musings for this months Daring Bakers challenge. If you are interested in either of these recipes you can find them at the Daring Bakers Recipe Archive.