Too many food blogs, not enough time
As my fellow food-bloggers and readers may know, there are a lot of food blogs out there, and with that many different people blogging their cooking, it inevitably leads to a situation where there are WAY too many recipes that you want to try, and to give them all a shot, you’ll need to stay chained to your kitchen and cook non-stop for the next 10 years!
Okay, so that may be a *slight* exaggeration, but I doubt it’s far off the mark 
Now, while my list of recipes to try continues to grow, when I saw these absolutely gorgeous twisted tuiles by Gilly at Humble Pie, I fell in love. Pure, pure love.
Go and have a look at them. Trust me.
Back? See what I mean?? How could you NOT want something that cute and sweet-looking?
My desire for these darling twisted cookies was so overwhelming that as soon as I managed to place a comment (difficult as it was from all the drooling that was going on), I raced off to the kitchen to try and replicate these wonders!
As you can see, my feeble attempts look nowhere near as gorgeous as the ones that Gilly managed to turn out. I’m not sure why, but the batter was really liquidy and my cookies started to have holes form in them, as well as not having that luscious smooth look that are apparant in the originals. However, despite being saddened by the results, I continued to finish off the batch, working quickly and in batches of 5, trying my darndest to get each cookie shaped before it had hardened and set.
And after the entire batch was done, I managed to escape with only 3 burnt fingers! 
Despite the texture problems, the cooled cookies were divine! I did have to do without the amaretto as there was none to be found in the house, but I just added a little natural almond essence which worked pretty darn nicely with the honey in the recipe.
So, withoutany further mucking about (mostly because my brain has died and is beginning to leak out of my ears!), onto the recipe!
Twisted Almond & Honey Tuiles
(adapted from Gilly at Humble Pie)
Ingredients
115g butter
1 ¼ cup pure icing sugar
¼ cup honey
1 tsp natural almond extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
2 large egg whites
2 tsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1. Preheat oven to 150 degrees C.
2. Cut out a rectangle on some firm, shiny cardboard (laminated is good), about 7.5cm x 20cm. Inside this rectangle, cut out another rectangle about 3cm x 17cm (make sure you keep the sides of the original rectangle intact as this is your stencil). Have your wooden spoon/s out and ready to go 
3. Beat the butter and sugar till light and creamy, then beat in the honey and almond extract. Add the flour and egg whites and continue to beat till mixture is well combined.
4. In a seperate smaller bowl, combine 3 tbsp of cookie batter with the cocoa powder and mix till smooth, then spoon mixture into a piping bag with a fairly fine tip, taking care to avoid trapping any air bubbles.
5. Line a baking tray with baking paper, then place the stencil on and about 2 tbsp of batter on top, then pipe some wiggly lines or decorations onto the batter with the cocoa-flavoured batter in the piping bag. Use a knife or offset spatula to smooth out the cookie batter, then carefully lift the stencil and repeat another 4-5 times.
6. Place in the middle rack of your oven and bake for about 4-6 minutes or till a light golden brown colour. Remove from the oven and set for about 1 minute to rest them, then use an offset spatula (or a knife) to carefully slide under and lift up a tuile. Gently wrap the tuile around the wooden spoon, give it a few seconds to hold the form then slide it off and leave it to cool on a wire rack. Repeat with the remaining tuiles - if they become too firm then pop them back in the oven for a few moments to soften them up again.
Technorati Tags: tuiles, mignardises, petit fours, biscuits, cookies, sweets, desserts, recipe
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Comments
Oh, yeah - and I totally agree with you about too many food blogs - I am currently following 127 of them. Yep, that’s all I do all day long at work!! (I’m such a bad employee 
I couldn’t agree with you more, Ellie! So many wonderful recipes and so little time - wow!
These look amazing, sweetie!
Ellie, I think they look awesome! And if you look closely at mine, you’ll see that there are little holes and cracks at the edges too - particularly near the ends… I don’t think one can get them perfectly smooth. I’m sorry to hear that the batter frustrated you… 
I’ll go back and check that I jotted the recipe down correctly in the first place.
…and I think that almond extract is actually what the original recipe called for, so good call there! I’m really glad that you enjoyed the taste of them!
Ellie. These look great… You are so good at delicate things like this! I want to have some and dip them in ice cream!
I think they look perfect! I might have already said this on Gilly’s blog.. but these kinds of cookies are dangerous for me. This is the exact type of cookie that only after I finished the last one in the batch would I realize that I actually just ate the whole batch by. my. self. hehe
I write down the names of the recipes or I clip them on bloglines, so I know where to find my favorite recipes. By the way, I have tried 2 of your pancake recipes!
These look wonderful, Ellie. And you just gave me yet another blog to read! I’ll have to tell the kids to blame ‘Aunty Ellie’ for their neglect LOL.
Ellie, I don’t see how they could be more perfect.
I’ve been traveling and had no internet and talk about so many blogs to read. I’m so far behind! And YES there are so many recipes that I would so love to fix and really there are not enough hours in the day or room in the stomach or around the waist to cook all the ones I would so love to do!
hi ellie …simply lovely tuiles and i hv so fallen in love with them. I have only tried making round ones so this shape is kind of tricky. At this very moment mom and i are figuring about the measument of the cardboard. I thought the measurement between u and Gilly(humble pie) would be the same as u uses cm and Gilly uses inches but after measuring somehow the r not the same. So mom is still cracking her head now to whichever measument is correct…LOL n still wondering how the templete should look like. How would u suggest i do it . Thanks
rgds
first gilly n then you….u ladies are really good at making these wonderful twisties.They look amazing and makes me want to pick one right out of the screen and eat one.
hi ellie , i managed to try the tuiles recipe and it tasted great. I do hv to salute u in managing to twist the tuiles beautifully because i fail in that area. I had a hard time twisting because by the time i do that it started to harden therefore making it difficult to form a beautiful shape…i was really quick hand in doing them but its really hard to shape them causing a lot of broken pieces….LOL . Btw how did u managed to shape them after cooling them for 1 min….with me a few seconds all its takes to harden n making it difficult to shape. iI did place back in the oven to soften them but stll unsucessful.
rgds
I think you did a fantastic job with them. I also was in love the minute I saw them on her blog. But I yet to have the guts to try them. Well done.
I wanted to make these as well when I saw them! Yours are very pretty, I love the pics. And I agree, I would never leave the kitchen ever if I actually made all of the wonderful recipes I find on the blogs.
Hiya, I chanced upon your blog in search of a good macaron recipe. I’ve tried 4 attempts in making it, but have failed thus far. Hope I will succeed with the recipe you posted. =)
Anyway, these tuiles look wondeful. I’ve seen them on Gilly’s blog too and marked it to be on my ‘Recipes to try’ List too. And great blog you have here. Gonna add your link!!
You can never have too much of a good thing-speaking of food blogs, that is!
Fantastic blog,love the photos, keep it up.
These are beautiful! Between these and the ones Gilly made - woah! I am with you on the too-many-great-recipes tip…I have bookmarked way too many to name!
Deborah - I definitely recommend giving these a go, they’re quite a bit of fun (well, the rolling bit is bound to cause some hilarity - if not for you, then for your bystanders ;))
Patricia - Thanks hon
Gilly - Aww, thanks sweetheart And I think it might have been something as simple as too much butter, I’ll drop the amount next time and see how I go!
Anh - Ice cream is very much a good call!
Lis - Hehehe, my family and I had the same problem 
Kat - Thanks sunshine
Cris - It’s scary just how many recipes there are out there, isn’t it? Hope you liked the pancakes!
Mandi - Hehehe, trust me, you’ll love Gilly’s blog! And tell the kids that Auntie Ellie is very sorry
Tanna - Thanks hon! I hope you write about your travels, I always adore reading your tales!
Sue - I adjusted her measurements after converting them to make them easier to cut out, either will work
Cheryl - Gilly’s blog is wonderful, isn’t it?
Brilynn - Hehehe, maybe there should be a help group for this? Food bloggers anonymous?
MP - Well, at least we can’t ever say that we’re bored!
Jacelyn - I hope it works for you Thanks for visiting! I’ve just had a look at your gorgeous blogs and I think I’ve just found another one to ready
Aimee - Thanks hon!
Susan - Cheers sweetie!
Chris - Glad to know that you can sympathize At least we’re all in this boat together!
Peabody - Thanks hon
You and Gilly should start to think about opening your own bakery, seriously! I think yours is superb too!
Gattina - Thanks sweetheart I doubt that I could help in the kitchen, better that Gilly make all the beautiful cooking and I’ll do the washing up
Bea - Thank you hon
Fooey - my image link didn’t work - Try this:
I think that your cookies turned out beautifully! Now I want to try!