ALMOND TUILES

Steps:

• Put the cream and butter in a small saucepan and heat over medium heat until the butter melts.
• Remove from heat and stir in the vanilla.
• Put the almonds, sugar, flour and zest in a medium bowl and stir to mix thouroughly with a rubber spatula.
• add warm cream mixture and stir with spatula until batter is smooth.
• Cover the batter with plastic wrap and refrigerate until THOROUGHLY chilled and thickened- preferably overnight.
• The batter can be made ahead and refrigerated, wrapped airtight, for 4 days.
• Baking the Tuiles: Preheat the over to 325 degrees and place your oven rack in the middle or lower third of the oven.
• You will need a rolling pin, wine bottle or some other cylindrical object to form the tuiles.
• They can also be formed over the bottom of a cup to make a container for mousse or berries etc.
• Stir the chilled batter to remix.
• Drop batter onto a parchment or silpat lined sheetpan, allowing 1 teaspoon of batter for each tuile.
• Leave 2 inches between each one.
• There is no need to spread out the batter- it will spread itself.
• You can make these larger if you want, but will have to adjust baking times accordingly.
• Bake the tuiles for 5-8 minutes until they spread and turn honey brown.
• DO NOT LEAVE THE KITCHEN- the tuiles will go from almost done to overdone in a very short time.
• Remove sheetpan and allow to cool for about 30 seconds.
• Forming the Tuiles: slide the tuiles back and forth with your fingers or a spatula to release them.
• Pick them up one by one and lay on the rolling pin.
• Press lightly on the tuile with your hand to get a nice curved shape.
• The cookies will mold and cool in a few seconds, so you should remove the shaped cookies as soon as you need room on the rolling pin for more.
• If the tuiles become cool and hard to remove from the sheetpan, put them back in the oven for 1 minute and then continue.
• Repeat with the rest of the batter making sure that the sheetpans cool between batches.
• Decorating the tuiles: Scrape the melted chocolate into a parchment cone or plastic zip-lock bag.
• Snip the end making a tiny hole and pipe very thin lines across the tuiles.
• You can also use a fork dipped into the chocolate and then waved back and forth over the tuiles.
• Serve as soon as the chocolate sets.