Tuile Cookies

Many of the challenges that we have had so far with The Daring Bakers have seemed to be more complicated both by number of ingredients and the feat pulling it all together. This month’s challenge seemed to focus less on ingredients and more on the method. It’s been a nice change of pace this time around, because I do feel like I have learned something new – although it’s clear I need a bit more practice before I perfect these cookies.

It has been ages since I have eaten a tuile cookie, which is essentially a very light cookie that can come in a variety of molded shapes. One of the more common is the cigarette shape, where the cookie is rolled. The key to shaping these is to bake them flat first, then shaping soon after taking them out of the oven.

We were given a variety of recipes, but I decided to go with one that was created by a fellow vegan, Lolo of VeganYumYum.com. There were a couple of reasons why I was drawn to her recipe – one, I had all of the ingredients on hand and two, she used flax seed as a binder, which, believe it or not, I have never tried. I was slightly hesitant to use flax seed because I do not like the taste, but I was highly curious how it would work. It worked really well, and I am interested in trying it again as a substitute for the other egg substitutes found in other recipes (i.e. Ener-G or the baking powder, oil and water concoction – which is totally fun to make, by the way).

Vegan Tuile Cookies
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. Original recipe I have used can be found on www.veganyumyum.com

• 1/2 cup vegan butter, softened
• 1/2 Cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons Flax Egg*
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

*Flax Egg

• 1 tablespoon flax seed, ground
• 1/4 cup water

Grind the flax seed to a powder in a spice grinder.

Whisk with water and set aside. Use 2 tablespoons of this mixture for the tuile cookies, you’ll have a little left over.

Preheat oven to 375° Fahrenheit.

Whip the vegan and sugar until light and fluffy. I used our brand spanking new KitchenAid mixer.

Add flax egg, extract, and salt.

Whip until well mixed or you see medium to stiff peaks. Notice how the batter binds together well with the flax.

Gently fold in flour and mix until well combined.

What you are typically supposed to do at this point is create templates to spread the tuile batter in. For example, using a clean piece of cardboard or heavy plastic, you can cut shapes like circles or hearts and then you can fill in that space with the tuile batter. Unfortunately I didn’t have any of that on hand, so I used the next best thing – a biscuit cutter.

Place a sheet of parchment paper or silpat on a baking sheet, then put your template or biscuit cutter on top of that.

Spread some batter as thinly and evenly as possible in the template or cutter.

Repeat this only once or twice more because these cookies will firm up fast when they come out of the oven and you’ll need to be able to shape them.

Bake the cookies for 8-10 minutes or until edges are golden brown. You may need to experiment with baking time to reach the ideal balance between strength and pliability.

Once they are out of the oven, let them sit for 15-30 seconds before removing and then shaping. Carefully remove a cookie from the sheet, and shape depending on what you are envisioning for the final look. I used the end of a round handled spoon to roll mine into large cigarette shapes. You can also do bowls or cones or anything else your imagination comes up with.

After a few minutes the cookies will fully harden and they will be done.

A couple of things.

First, while it can be done, I now see why it is not the best idea to use a biscuit/cookie cutter for forming the cookies. You really do need something that is flat and closer to the work surface. Spreading the cookie dough should be far easier this way.

Second, I would recommend making smaller cookies (smaller circumference) if they are to be rolled into a cigarette shape. If forming bowls or cones, a larger shape would make more sense, but the shape I went with gave me cookies that I felt were too large.

Finally, going back to the flaxseed binder – my cookies did not taste like flax at all, which was really nice. I’m definitely going to revisit using that again in the future.

Related posts:

• Pfeffernuesse Cookies
• Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
• Chocolate Chip Cookies
• Vegan Sugar Cookies
• Vegan Opera Cake

Tagged as: all-purpose flour, flax seed, salt, sugar, vanilla extract, vegan butter