Friday, January 30, 2009

Daring Bakers Challenge: Tuiles!

This month's challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.



S and I chose to make the chocolate tuiles. Mostly we made a huge honking mess.



Chocolate Tuiles
Michel Roux’s Finest Desserts

Makes 30

Preparation time: 15 minutes!

9 oz/250 grams dark or white couverture or best-quality bittersweet chocolate, chopped

2/3 cup/75 gr slivered almonds, toasted and cooled

Temper the couverture, and stir in the toasted almonds. Place the template on a sheet of rodoïde (or use a clean sheet of sturdy plastic such as a folder) and fill with about 1 tbs of the mixture. Repeat the process a little distance away from the first one. As soon as you have 5 tuiles fit, slide them onto a mold or rolling pin (side of a glass) to curve. Let cool completely, lift tuiles off the plastic only after the chocolate has set and just before serving, so that they keep their shine.

So we used Green & Black's 70% dark chocolate. I keep raw almonds in my freezer, so we chopped them up and used those. I know it's more rustic, but according to Ms. Julia Child, that's ok. ;-)

S did 99% of the work. She mashed the bars (still wrapped) with a mallet, and then poured the chocolate chunks into a stainless pan. Then she pushed the chocolate around in there with the heat on low. Then she put the almonds in a mini chop, and chopped them so there were no big chunks. Then she dumped them into the chocolate.

We used cookie cutters as our "forms." This worked well to get the shape, but it meant the chocolate wasn't particularly thin, and it took a while to set. We also made some plain circles, which was actually the most fun for us. We did shape some, and some we left flat, because the process was getting lengthy and there is only so much time a 4 year old can spend on these tasks. But we do these challenges to have a fun mommy/daughter activity, not to become world reknown chefs. So it works for us. ;-)

I still need to put the pictures up, but I didn't want to miss out on getting my post up!



Later....



I have my photo. We served this tuile with fresh blackberries and fage greek yogurt. Yum!