Daring Bakers: Light and dessert?

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.

Phew, now that I got that important bit of information out of the way.... (Hi BC, and BC's wonderful computer literate son!)

Well this was an interesting challenge, making Tuiles and shaping them, with alot of different options. And I will admit right now, I ignored most of them. I printed off the original post with recipes, I used the first one and I ignored everything else.

I also made them twice.

This was attempt number one.

I had this plan. I was going to make little Tuile cups, filled with a fruit mousse, and serve them at my housewarming party. They were going to be so cute, these little cups, entirely edible, with fun tuile decorations.

The best laid plans of mice and bloggers....

It didn't work.

I personally think I forgot to sift the icing sugar or something, cause they just did not work well. I could never get the cookie layer thin enough on the sheet and what did bake up had an odd, lacy texture.

I even tried with some of my little decoration ideas. Chocolate tuiles, thin, wrapped around chopsticks for a fun and "ooooh how did you do that?" shape. Some of my batter I turned blue to make playful shapes with.

Unfortunately, most of these turned out brittle and uncooperative.

So I put them aside, made other things, and came back to them later.

This is what later resulted in. A much better batter, able to make thin, crisp tuile cookie cups and shapes. This time I went with a slightly larger sized mold, a ramekin, and made just enough "cups" for my family, with seconds for the boys.

The blue tuile cookie, standing out on the plate, is actually from my first attempt, as are the little chocolate curls that decorate the mousse (which is a milk chocolate salted butter caramel mousse from Tartlette - hey, Karen and Zorra said to pair the cookies with something light, which a mousse is. They never said anything about that light not involving chocolate or caramel! Common, this is the Daring Bakers, of course I had to use chocolate and caramel!)

Aside from not freaking out about this months challenge recipe length, one thing that really hit home actually came from the mousse rather than the challenge recipe. I decided to make the mousse on a Sunday night. After we'd all had dinner, I'd cleaned up, gotten a start on the next day's lunches, mopped my kitchen floor, and then the entire rest of the house, I decided to make mousse.


Heck I'd even put my youngest son to bed already. While he curled up under his blankets with all his little stuffed friends, I made a caramel without blinking an eye. I pittered around the kitchen, getting the next steps ready, while the sugar bubbled away in the pot and I kept an eye on it.

I could never have done that a year ago. Working with hot sugar would have forced me to do it early in the day (so I'd have time to redo it, several times if necessary) and I'd have hovered over the stove, afraid to blink.

Every month, despite some annoyances, I am glad I am a Daring Baker. And I thank Daring Baker's like Karen and Zorra, for sending me off on a different culinary path than one I might have chosen for myself. If not for this month's challenge, I might never have felt a need to make a tuille cookie.

And extra special thanks, ongoing all the time, to Lis and Ivonne for starting this little baking journey that sooooooooooo many of us are on now.

Oh, and in case you wondered, I did let my little guy get out of bed to have an extra special bed time snack with his brother. They giggled and ate, talking about how they were eating the antlers off the mousse with ever crunch of the cookie. Both of them had seconds.