Almond Tuiles and French Tiles

Almond Tuiles are thin almond biscuits (cookies if in the US) that are shaped to resemble Mediterranean roof tiles and that according to Richard Grausman in his book French Classics Made Easy every French pastry chef strives to perfect.
I’m not sure how well I’d be rated, but here is the recipe courtesy of Richard Grausman.

Almond Tuiles

• Butter for baking sheets
• 3 tbls. (45g) unsalted butter
• ½ cup minus 2 tsp. (100g) sugar
• 2 egg whites
• ¼ tsp. pure vanilla extract
• 3 tbls. plus 1tsp. (30g) all-purpose flour
• 1 cup (100g) sliced blanched almonds

Pre-heat the oven to 400℉ (200ºC) with the oven rack in the middle position.
Heavily butter two baking sheets.

In a small saucepan, melt the 3 tbls. butter and remove from heat

In a small bowl, combine the sugar, egg whites, and vanilla and, without beating, mix together with a whisk. Stir in the flour with the whisk until smooth. Add the melted butter and once again, stir until smooth.

Using a rubber/silicone spatula, fold in the sliced almonds

Drop teaspoonfuls of the batter onto a baking sheet.

With the back of the spoon, spread each thinly to about 3 inches in diameter (you will see the baking sheet through the thin layer of batter), leaving 2 inches between each cookie.

Bake until the edges are browned, 4 to 7 minutes.

Using a long metal spatula and working quickly, remove the cookies from the sheet and lay them over a rolling pin or bottle.

When cooled, remove the tuiles from the rolling-pin. As soon as one batch is finished, bake the next.

Serve with ice cream or your favourite dessert. When cooled, put them into a jar or tin to keep them dry, as humidity will make them limp, sticky and chewy and won’t win you any stars!!

Richard Grausman suggests to make them as thin as possible, but as I am not a master pastry chef, I found that if they were too thin, they were hard to get off the tin in one piece. Let me know how you get on.