Tuiles Madness

As some of you may know, I recently joined the blogging phenomenon known as The Daring Bakers. Basically, it's a group of 2,000+ members who every month gear up and bake some type of outrageous pastry, dessert, bread, etc... There are all sorts of rules to the "challenges" and it's pretty cool to see all the different variations on the same recipe.

January's challenge was for Tuiles (pronounce Tweels). You could make sugar, chocolate or savory Tuiles, but they all needed to be paired with something light (ie ice cream, whipped cream, mousse...) except for the savory one.

They're kind of intricate to make, because you've got to make a stencil to bake the Tuiles, spread them suuuuper thinly so they get crispy, but not too thinly, otherwise they burn. And then wrap them around some type of mold to get them into a cone shape (thank goodness for my mother, the queen of hoarding baking supplies-who graciously donated her cannoli mold for this challenge).

Now here's the tricky part-you need to mold them AS SOON as they come out of the oven, otherwise, they crisp up and can't be formed. So here I was, Thursday night, burning my fingers (this is pre-Friday arm burn) rolling Tuiles. Luckily, I was on the phone with R. who graciously kept my mind off of my burning fingers. Thanks R.!!!

Alas, after the Tuiles were baked and molded, ( I made sugar Tuiles and Poppy Seed Tuiles), I set out to make the mousses. I ended up with a vanilla mousse (majorly yum) and a strawberry mousse. For some reason, the strawberry mousse did not firm up, and was runny. Yuck.

Special shout out to my wonderful Husband B. who extremely graciously did dishes with me at 1 am-Love you!

All in all, they were a pretty yummy and different dessert (I wanted them to look like mini ice cream cones for R.'s (different R.) birthday).

I need some serious help in the photography department-any volunteers?

Next time, I'm thinking about doing a savory Tuile with Tuna Tartare and Avacado-too bad I hate raw fish-anyone willing to take them off my hands???