Baking Diary – Log 26 – 12.05.2014
Hiya,
To continue with the cookie monster series (remember my forever ago Cat-tongue cookies, then recently Ultimate Chocolate Chunk Cookies and Matcha Sablé?), today, I will share with my dear readers/friends another favorite recipes of mine: Almond Tuiles. “Tuile” is a thin, crisp, sweet or savory wafer that takes its name after tuiles, or tiles, that line the rooftops of French country homes, particularly those in Provence. To get a curved shape, tuiles are usually laid on a curved surface, such as a wine bottle or rolling pin right after baked (when it is still soft) and let cool until it is hardened and keep its signature shape.
As the name suggested, my Almond Tuiles has and extra layer of almond slices sprinkle on top, adding extra tastiness to the already-highly-addictive treat. Tuiles are commonly added as garnishes to desserts such as ice cream/sorbet (sometimes as a cup holder as well), panna cotta, or other soft-texture to add a little crunch and edginess to the dish. Mine? Never last that long, the whole batch usually baked and consumed by my friends and family within hours. 😛
Excited yet? Me too.
Recipe
Difficulty: Medium
(Adapted from Kokotaru)
- 70g egg white (from 2 eggs)
- 50g powdered sugar
- 50g melted butter
- 50g all-purpose flour
- ¼ tsp. salt
- 100g blanc almond slices (or nuts of your choice. This amount is suggested but the more the merrier, truly true with this case. I once use 250g of almond for one recipe and the result was just sublime. Yeah well, talk about Rose and her uncured greediness.)
Demonstration
Step 1: preheat the oven to 170 degree C, prepare a baking sheet lined with baking paper.
Step 2: Sift the flour. Always sift the flour.
Step 3: Beat egg white with sugar and salt to stiff peak, go here if you need some more instruction on this.
Step 4: Fold in sifted flour in 2-3 additions.
After this step, your batter should still very firm and well-shaped.
Step 5: Add melted butter, fold.
Final batter will look like this. That’s it, so simple, eh?
Step 6: Scoop a spoonful of batter on the prepared baking sheet. Then use the back of the same spoon to spread out the batter in circular motion. You aim to achieve 1-2mm thickness here.
Continue making some more circles, each about 1 cm apart because this batter won’t spread. Try to fit in as many as you can at once to save some baking time.
Step 7: Sprinkle generously almond slices on top, but try to have the slices stick to the batter, otherwise it will be off the cookies after baked.
Step 8: Bake the tuiles in preheated oven, for 10-15 minutes depends on the thickness. But your thumb rule here is to take the cookies out when roughly 1-1.5cm around the edge is golden. Eyeballing it is OK, no need to stick a ruler into the hot oven, eh? hehe, just kidding.
While the tuiles are being baked, prepare a rolling pin/cylinder objects/cups (many of them) of that you want your tuiles to take their shape from. Here from FineCooking, you can find various shapes of tuiles to choose from. I use a baguette pan as my “mold” to create that classic tile-like shape.
Step 9: Take the sheet out of the oven. And as quickly as you can, with your hand and ideally an offset spatula, slip the hot cookie out of the pan, place it on the “mold”, and like lightning, repeat with the rest of the cookies.
What if you could not finish all cookies at once and it hardens before you can mold it? I usually use 2 tricks, worked like charms. One is to eat all of the unmolded, muahaha. Two (after you are full, or unfortunately, have to mold them at any price because you are competing on MasterChef, make exactly 203 tuiles for 200 guests and 3 judges), pop them right back in the hot oven for an extra minute, the heat with soften the cookies, and you can continue molding it. This second trick only works for some times because gradually, your cookies lose all of it moisture (reason for softening). But the first one, I tell you, work-every-time.
Step 10: Repeat the same process with the second batch while the first batch is cooled. After only few minutes, the cookies should be cool enough to be put into airtight container or for consumption.
The tuiles are great on their own or side by side with ice cream, sorbet, fresh fruits, curd/custard, and whipped cream. To keep its crunchiness, keep it in airtight containers. But again, I doubt they last that long. 🙂
Until next time,
Rose.
