Tuile Ice Cream Cups

It takes every fiber of my being to keep my hands out of a cookie jar. These tuiles may be stored inside a tupperware in my kitchen, but my hands don’t know the difference. This paper thin wafer is one of my favorite cookies, simply because of its versatility and effortless presentation. Not to mention, they’re delicious! The confectioners’ sugar, butter and vanilla extract make for a delicately sweet cookie.

I’ll be honest. No forethought went into baking these tuiles last weekend. I literally saw a picture of ice cream sitting prettily inside a tuile cup one night and said: “Hey, I want to make that!” The next day I was shaping these cookies to my heat’s content. That, my friends, is the power of Pinterest and its effect on my impulsiveness.

As I looked through recipes for tuile batter, I began to get a little nervous. Most instructions advised that you only bake two tuiles at a time (in the beginning) and emphasized that you need to shape them quickly once they come out of the oven. Otherwise, the cookie will harden and be too stiff to shape. “Great”, I thought. This has all the potential for good pastry gone bad: the batter won’t be thin enough; I won’t make perfect 5” circles; the cookies are going to burn; I can’t shape the cookies fast enough; etc. After ten minutes of baking, I’d be ready to throw in the towel as I curse those damn little tuiles.

Surprisingly, my experience was the exact opposite! This was such a fun bake, and our whole family enjoyed the process. Stewart was pulling different glasses and kitchen utensils out of the cabinets to determine which items made the best shapes. Mary Catherine and Henry were sneaking tuile cups off of the counter as fast as I could shape them. Victoria…well, she was along for the ride.

We ended up using our Bourbon glasses to shape the cups. The base was the perfect size to display a scoop of raspberry sorbet or vanilla ice cream. We also thought our kiwi peeler (which I’ve yet to use for peeling kiwi) made pretty tulip shapes.

There are so many possibilities with different tuile shapes and toppings. You could mold your tuiles into narrow cones and pipe in cream or curd filling. You could leave them relatively flat and layer them with whipped cream and fruit. I bet they would also make great cigarettes russes. 

This kind of cigarette: 

Not this kind:

I will definitely be making this batter again to try different shapes and fillings. Untuile then, I’ll be nibbling on the left overs from this batch. Bad attempt at a play on words, but I couldn’t help myself.

I used King Arthur Flour’s tuile recipe (linked here), and I wouldn’t change a thing. I’ve also included it below with comments based on my experience baking these cookies.


King Arthur Flour’s Tuile Recipe:

Ingredients:
3/4 cup + 2 tablespoons King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, melted
4 large egg whites, room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

Measure the flour, confectioners’ sugar and salt; sift them together twice into a medium size bowl.

Whisk in the vanilla, eggs and melted butter until the batter is very smooth and thin. You don’t want any lumps. If any lumps remain, you can pass the batter through a fine sieve to break them up.

Cover the bowl and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours, but no longer.

Remove the bowl from the refrigerator and stir to check the batter’s consistency. If it’s thickened, add 1/2 of a teaspoon of milk at a time to get it thin again.
Note: I added about 2 tsps of milk to mine to get it back to a thin batter. I kept it in the refrigerator for about an hour and a half, and it thickened. 

Preheat the oven to 400°F. 

Lay a clean sheet of parchment paper on a flat baking sheet.
Note: I purchased two silicone baking mats to use instead of the parchment paper. I think it made this next step a lot easier.

Take a 1 teaspoon measuring spoon to scoop out 2 individual teaspoons of dough. Space each teaspoon scoop about 5”-6” apart on the baking sheet.

Use a thin spreader to smooth the batter out to a 4" to 5" circle. The batter will be nearly transparent. Bake for 4 to 5 minutes, just until the very edge of the circle begins to color.
Note: I just used the back of the teaspoon measuring spoon for this. 

Once you pull the baking sheet out of the oven, work quickly to peel each tuile off the parchment and form into your desired shape.
Note: I laid mine over the base of our Bourbon glasses and cupped my hands around them to form our ice cream bowls.

Remove the cooled tuile and stand it right side up, ready for filling.
Note: They will cool quickly - less than a minute after shaping them.

In the beginning I made 2 tuiles at a time; you must work with them quickly after they come out of the oven. As time went on, I was rotating two baking sheets at a time, each with 4 scoops of dough on them. As one baking sheet came out of the oven, I was putting another one in to bake.