Daring Bakers Challenge: Tuiles!

I've finally gotten my act together enough to do another Daring Bakers challenge. This month, it's tuiles, French for "tiles," since the feather-weight cookies are curved to look like roof tiles.

I dyed mine pink and used a heart stencil (see below).

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.

Recipe:
Yields: 20 small butterflies/6 large (butterflies are just an example)
Preparation time batter 10 minutes, waiting time 30 minutes, baking time: 5-10 minutes per batch.

¼ cup softened butter (not melted but soft)
½ cup sifted confectioner’s sugar
1 sachet vanilla sugar (7 grams or substitute with a dash of vanilla extract)
2 large egg whites (slightly whisked with a fork)
½ cup sifted all purpose flour
1 tablespoon cocoa powder/or food coloring of choice
Butter/spray to grease baking sheet

Oven: 350F

Using a hand whisk or a stand mixer fitted with the paddle (low speed) and cream butter, sugar and vanilla to a paste. Keep stirring while you gradually add the egg whites. Continue to add the flour in small batches and stir to achieve a homogeneous and smooth batter/paste. Be careful to not over-mix.

Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 30 minutes to firm up. (This batter will keep in the fridge for up to a week, take it out 30 minutes before you plan to use it).

Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or grease with either butter/spray and chill in the fridge for at least 15 minutes. This will help spread the batter more easily if using a stencil/cardboard template such as the butterfly. Press the stencil on the baking sheet and use an off sided spatula to spread batter. Leave some room in between your shapes. Mix a small part of the batter with the cocoa and a few drops of warm water until evenly colored. Use this colored batter in a paper piping bag and proceed to pipe decorations on the wings and body of the butterfly.

Bake butterflies in a preheated oven (180C/350F) for about 5-10 minutes or until the edges turn golden brown. Immediately release from bakingsheet and proceed to shape/bend the cookies in the desired shape. These cookies have to be shaped when still warm, you might want to bake a small amount at a time or maybe put them in the oven to warm them up again. (Haven’t tried that). Or: place a bakingsheet toward the front of the warm oven, leaving the door half open. The warmth will keep the cookies malleable.

If you don’t want to do stencil shapes, you might want to transfer the batter into a piping bag fitted with a small plain tip. Pipe the desired shapes and bake. Shape immediately after baking using for instance a rolling pin, a broom handle, cups, cones….

That's my heart stencil, which I cut out of the plastic lid of a coffee can.
You paint the batter on very thinly with a metal, off-sided spatula.

I did have mine on some coconut sorbet, but, in the end,
the sorbet looked a bit off. . . like a lump of lard!
So, here they are, not as a garnish but as the main feature.
The squiggle I made with a sandwich bag, cut at a corner, for a piping bag.

Copenhagen Bakery, Burlingame, CA

My sister is obsessed with the Princess Cake (image and description below), and last year she and her friends had a Princess Cake taste-off, when they sampled Princess Cakes from fine bakeries from around the California Bay Area. The winner? The Copenhagen Bakery Princess Cake. I got to partake of this marvelous cake over the holidays. My dad was so enthusiastic about it, he bought an entire cake to take home (after we had already had a slice at the bakery)!

So pretty!

Here are the layers of the Princess Cake, revealed: (from top) marzipan, whipped cream, raspberry filling, sponge cake, custard, raspberry filling, and sponge cake. It's best to eat all the layers together - the marzipan should be smooth and light. Heavenly! Decadent!

Various goodies.

More goodies.

Never one for restraint, this is the box of pastries my dad bought in addition to the entire Princess Cake. My mom is also a lover of pastries. And my sister. With genes like these, I'm doomed.

Breakfast of Champions

Poaching eggs has been my new thing, lately. I like the nice, soft texture of the egg whites and the runny egg yolk - especially on toasted bread and salad greens, with some balsamic vinaigrette.

Those Naughty Greeks!

Beware! The following content may be offensive to those sensitive to graphic material . . . even if it is over two thousand years old.

I found these images at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. I find them pretty funny and evidence to prove that humans are not that much more sex-obsessed now than they were then. We might have more access to sexual material, but it seems that it has always been on our minds. Since I do study gender and biblical material, I always find this stuff fascinating. And titillating.

Ancient Greek servingware...for that special occasion, maybe?
In tiny letters, the Greek translates to something like, "Hold on!"

A satyr - those satyrs are always having a good time with their gigantic phalluses!

Another interesting piece of, ahem, dinnerware.

This is my favorite - you'll have to click on the picture to enlarge it to get a better look. It's a signet ring - for sealing what kind of letters, I don't know. Love letters? A bit too obvious, I should think. The description reads, "Erotic Scene, Sappharine Chalcedony, Greek, 4th Century B. C."

SF in the New Year

Happy New Year, everyone! 2008 was a hell of a year, and I am glad to put it behind me, although I remain grateful for what it taught me. Here's to a light-filled 2009.

Over vacation, my family took a couple days to hang out in San Francisco. We stayed at a nice little hotel in Japantown, the Hotel Kabuki. The first part of our trip was rather Asian-themed, the second more food-themed. Well, things are always food-themed in my family!

Asiatica

This is the Asian Art Museum, located across a green from SF City Hall.
The special exhibit was "Afghanistan", which was great, but I was not allowed to take any photos.

This is from the Korean Art section, with various sculptures - many of them fabric and paper.

Delicate paper slippers. The character for "woman" is on the soles.

Detail from an illumination in the Islamic Art room.

Katsu donburi. Fried pork cutlet on rice, with onions and egg. Mmmmmm.

When in Japantown . . . This is my mom, being silly.

Making Taiyaki - fish-shaped pancakes filled with red-bean paste.
We had these in the morning - a perfect breakfast food.

The Farmer's Market

The Ferry Building, on Embarcadero, houses a fantastic farmer's market on Saturday,
along with a kazillion gourmet food shops. It was heaven!

Haven't you always wanted to eat pink mushrooms?

Fresh oysters. I had one and it was absolutely delicious. Just $1.50 a pop!

People mingle and eat whatever goodies they've bought (and samples they've scrounged - they're very generous with the samples there) at the market in this gorgeous setting behind the Ferry Building.

Oh-so-California.

Mom & sis, eating lunch on the sidewalk.

And here are some treasures we brought home to enjoy:

Mochi! The two on the left are what I call "inside-out" mochi - they're a piece of mochi wrapped in red-bean paste. The one on the right is a chestnut flavored mochi. There's a great mochi shop in the Japantown mall, filled with countless kinds of mochi.

A tea set my mom brought home. She says she likes its serene colors.