Tuesday 24 September 2013

Beautiful tuiles from episode 5

I've been away for a while but I'm back with a lovely blog about tuiles. Just like the start of a good history essay I'd like to define the key terms, and in this case it is 'tuile'. According to Wiki - "A tuile is a thin, crisp, sweet or savory wafer made of dough or cheese. Originally from France, 'tuile' means tile in French, and is named after the shape of French roof tiles it is supposed to resemble. " So there you have it. I made tuiles. They looked really good, although 
some were bendy rather than snappy. The snappy ones had to be really thin and they tasted great. As is becoming the norm with these bakes they took hours to make, and then half an hour later me and my mother had eaten them all. I made thirty or more tuiles and I stuck five in a bit of ice cream and then just downed the rest. They were good, but not really worth the time and effort.

You will need:

For the tuiles


  • 200g/7oz butter, softened
  • 175g/6oz icing sugar
  • 6 large free-range eggs, whites only, lightly beaten
  • 200g/7oz plain flour
  • 3 tsp cocoa powder





  • 50g/1¾oz plain chocolate, melted





    I failed in acquiring a silicon or plastic template for the tuiles, so I drew around a mug on a piece of paper instead. I then cut out the circles. It felt like I was on art attack rather than trying to bake something but nevermind.




    After the crafting, I had to mix butter, sugar and vanilla extract into a paste using an electric mixer. I whipped out grandma's old Kenwood mixer again and it was mixing away for about 30 seconds then it broke. The Kenwood mixer is no more :(. It gave off a very strong burning rubber smell which lingered for the next hour and made me feel really queasy for the rest of the bake as well. I whisked egg whites gently then poured them into the mixture whisking all the time by hand. I was trying my best to whisk at electric speed and trick the pesky mixture, but it just looked more and more curdled. Then I had to beat in the flour which made it look even worse. I was thinking at this point that the lack of an electric mixer was going to ruin this bake but after more time beating in the flour with a wooden spoon it did eventually turn in to a smooth paste. 




    Yuck
    yay

    Next, I took a sixth of the mixture and added cocoa in a separate bowl. I now had two bowls of the mixture, one chocolate and one plain. I then had to cover them with cling film and leave for 30 mins. Yay time for a rest!



    TUILE TIME! I pre-heated the oven to 180C and spread the plain mixture over my paper template which was on top of baking paper, then I slowly peeled the paper away. This batch were too thick but they looked amazing.




    After this I brought out the piping bag with much excitement. I'M A PROPER LITTLE BAKER. I have to say this has been the most fun bit of baking yet because I had to be artistic and it was just exciting okay? I put the chocolate mixture into the piping bag and made two circles on each tuile. 





    You cook the tuiles for 5-6 minutes. There is trend occurring with my bakes and that is multi-tasking stress. I only had one baking tray, so while it was in the oven I was spreading out more tuiles on to more baking paper, and the minute one batch were out another batch went in. Hectic. Not to mention that the tuiles came out of the oven red hot and bending them round rolling pins gave me sore fingers. The things I do for baking eh.



    Like other bakes, I had tonnes of the mixture so I just kept going - spreading out tuiles, decorating, putting them in the oven, bending them round rolling pins - until I really could not be bothered any more. 
    Cheeky smiley face crept in there



    I tried to make some cigars by bending the tuiles around the handle of a wooden spoon but they weren't great so I ate most of them straight away to hide the evidence. 


    All in all the bake was a success because the tuiles looked great! Some were bendy and some were snappy though - the tricky thing was getting the thickness correct and then not over cooking them. The ones that were more brown definitely tasted better so I would say cook more rather than less. Would I do these again? Possibly. But only because the piping was fun. I do feel I have reached my baking peak here and if these recipes get more difficult then the multi-tasking might get the better of me. Or I might have to just buy another baking tray. 






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