Tuiles à l'orange Lenotre Baking Class

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Back at the Lenôtre pastry school in Paris to make tuiles à l'orange - a smart tile-shaped flat cookie served with tea in gastronomic restaurants.

'Tea time pastries' was the name of the class I took at Lenôtre the other day. Very nice cookery lesson indeed. During 3 hours, we made 4 different pastries. The most delicate, yet quick to make, were undoubtedly the orange tiles.

Tuiles à l'orange
80 gr melted butter
100gr confectioners'sugar
20 gr flour
1 fresh orange
120 gr coarsely chopped almonds
5 sugar cubes

Melt the butter and let it cool.

Use the sugar cubes to scratch the orange and remove tiny pieces of rind. Squeeze the juice and mix 20 gr orange juice with the sugar cubes and rind.

Mix the confectioner sugar, flour and almonds in a bowl. Fold in the butter, then add the orange mixture and combine well.

Heat your oven to 180°C. On a baking sheet carefully lay spoonfuls of dough of equal weight with enough space between them. Do not worry about the shape as they will melt.

Bake for 6 to 9 minutes. The dough will melt and make very flat cookies. Lenôtre considers it good practice to turn the baking sheet halfway through baking so the oven's inevitably uneven heat is spread consistently. Just pull out the baking sheet, make a half turn, and put it back.

Now for the fun and difficult part. When they exit the oven, the tiles are still very hot and soft and you can't move then without tearing. But after about 60-80 seconds, they will crystallize and become brittle. It's quite tricky to wait just for the right moment. When the moment arrives, you have a 30 second window to take each tile with a metal spatula and lay it gently on something cylindrical. Professional chefs use the special tile form you see above. The tiles must be turned upside down so that the protruding chopped almonds will be on the convex side of the tile. If you use bottles laid flat instead, you won't have to turn the tiles at all.

Using a brioche or muffin form, you can make a beautiful little basket with a larger tile, left on the picture below. This can be used to serve ice cream for instance.

These orange tiles are a very elegant treat to serve with tea or coffee at the end of a meal. They cannot be baked in advance, but although a certain sleight of hand is needed, they are very quick to prepare.