No. 3360

Tuiles

Crush a pound of almonds with a pound and a quarter of sugar and six egg-whites to obtain a paste not too fine; put this into a bowl and beat well to give it body; then add eight beaten egg-whites and vanilla flavoring; mix well. Dress this preparation into flat oval macaroons on buttered and floured baking sheets; scatter shredded almonds over, bestrew lightly with powdered sugar and bake in a slack oven. As soon as done detach from the sheets, and bend each one around a wooden roller.

← No. 3359 Trouvere Cakes Tea Cakes No. 3361 Parisian Tuiles →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's tuile is closer to a soft almond macaroon batter than the thin lace tuile of later French pastry, and it is written at restaurant scale. Two things decide whether it works: the coarseness of the almond paste and how fast you shape the cookies once they leave the oven.

Shape them hot, one tray at a timeThe bend around the roller has to happen within roughly 30 to 60 seconds of the sheet coming out. Once cool the cookies snap. Bake six or eight to a sheet rather than a full tray, and if they set before you get to them, return the sheet to the oven for 30 seconds to soften again.
"Slack oven"About 300 to 325°F. The intent is to dry and set the meringue-and-almond batter with only light coloring at the edges, not to brown it. Expect 12 to 18 minutes depending on how thin they are spread.
"Not too fine"This matters. Crush the almonds with the sugar and the first six whites only until gritty, with visible fragments; a food processor pulsed in short bursts does it. Ground to a smooth paste, the batter loses the sandy macaroon body Ranhofer is after.
The two additions of egg whiteThe first six whites are unbeaten, working as liquid to bring the almonds and sugar to a paste. The eight that follow are beaten and folded in for lift. Beat them to soft, not stiff, peaks so they fold in without deflating the heavy base.
ScaleA pound of almonds, a pound and a quarter of sugar and fourteen whites makes several dozen cookies. A quarter batch — 4 oz almonds, 5 oz sugar, 1 to 2 whites for the paste plus 2 beaten whites — is a sensible home quantity, though the yield will depend entirely on how large and how thin you spread them.
"Bestrew"Simply dust. A light sifting of confectioners' sugar over the shredded almonds, which tends to give sugar-dusted almond batters a faintly crackled surface.
Buttered and floured sheetsParchment or a silicone mat is more reliable and makes the lifting step, which is the anxious part, far easier. Slide a thin offset spatula under the whole cookie rather than prying at one edge.
The rollerA rolling pin, a wine bottle or a length of dowel all work. Lay the hot cookie face down over the curve and press gently at the ends; leave it until fully cool and firm before removing.
StorageAirtight, and eaten within a day or two. Almond meringue cookies pull humidity from the air quickly and go leathery, at which point the curve is all you have left.

A Little History

Tuile is French for roof tile, and the name describes the finished shape rather than any ingredient: the curved terracotta tiles of southern French roofs, imitated by draping a hot cookie over a rolling pin. Charles Ranhofer, chef at Delmonico's in New York for some three decades, compiled The Epicurean in 1894 as a working reference for a professional kitchen, which is why the quantities run to pounds of almonds and fourteen egg whites at a stretch — a restaurant pastry department would have had whites left over from custards and ice creams, and almond-and-white confections like these were one way to use them. The recipe sits beside a second version, Parisian Tuiles, among the tea cakes, the small sweet biscuits served with tea and other desserts. Ranhofer's tuile still leans toward the older almond macaroon tradition; the very thin, brittle tuile familiar today appears to be a later development of the same idea.