Orange Glass Tuiles – Super Versatile Thin, Transparent Cookies
Here’s a super easy recipe for glass tuiles. Glass tuiles are transparent, crisp, thin cookies and while they can be eaten alone, are typically used as a garnish for other desserts. The picture at the right is not the greatest for showing off these cookies, but I love to serve them with fruit desserts.
For the adults in the house, marinate segmented oranges with freshly squeezed orange juice and a little muscat or other dessert liquor, orange flavored is a great choice. When I want to splurge I go with a little Muscat de Beaumes de Venise. For the kids, try a vanilla bean-infused light simple syrup with a few ticks of grated orange peel.
Highly versatile. You can crumble the cookies and use them as a base for sabayon or zabaglione desserts and fresh berries, or lightly sweetened whipped cream served with fresh fruits. If you make them small, shape the warm but set cookies in a tuile former, over the rim of a wide-rimmed bowl, or in the bottom of mini muffin cups. Orange glass tuiles are also lovely when kept flat and used as a large garnish, as is, or broken up into small pieces and used for sprinkling on top.
All in all, orange glass tuiles are a great way to dress up a bag of roadside fresh oranges.
Orange Glass Tuiles
- 3 1/2 ounces powdered sugar
- 3/4 ounces cake flour
- 1 1/4 ounces fresh squeezed orange juice
- 1 1/4 ounces melted salted butter, no substitutions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Place a silicone baking sheet on a cookie sheet or a sheet pan.
- Measure and sift the dry ingredients together.
- Add in the orange juice, then the melted butter. Stir to smooth.
- Place 1/2 teaspoon mounds onto the silicone baking sheet and spread out with the back of the spoon. Bake in the preheated oven for about 6 to 8 minutes, depending on the size of the cookie and the spread diameter of them. Bake until the tuiles are evenly browned. These cookies will spread a lot and become quite thin. If the batter is really loose, it may even bubble up and create holes in the cookies. That only adds to their charm.
- Let the cookies rest on the sheet pan for a minute or two until they set up enough to shape. If you work too soon, they won’t set up properly and you’ll end up with a hot, gooey mess that will end up shaping into a crisp mess. Store in an airtight container up to 2 days before serving.
