FOOD STYLING AND REAL LIFE

Chocolate Pudding / Vanilla Pudding
& Chocolate Tuiles

I had been meaning to make pudding for ages, but never seem to get around to it which is strange considering it is so easy. So...much to the delight of my children I cranked out a little Chocolate pudding with a recipe that I gleaned off of Marthastewart.com. I am in possession of Organic Free-trade Cuisine Camino Pure Cocoa which I used in this pudding to great results. The recipe makes 4 portions which worked out perfectly for us and kept me from gorging on pudding. A few days later I made the Vanilla pudding which was also rich and creamy.

Get the recipe for Chocolate & Vanilla pudding

What to do with the 4 egg whites left over from the pudding? Make the following tuile recipe to accompany your pudding.

Chocolate Tuiles

• 250 ml / 1 cup all purpose flour
• 45 ml / 3 tablespoons coaco powder
• 120 g / 8 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 85 g / 2/3 cup icing sugar
• 4 large egg whites, room temperature

Pre-heat oven to C / 400 F.

• In a bowl, sift flour and cocoa together until well combined (made need to sift more than once). Set aside. In a standing or hand mixer cream butter and sugar (5 minutes). Add the egg whites one at a time scraping down the sides of bowl after each addition. Fold in flour/chocolate mixture until well combined.
• Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Cut out a template in to desired shape (an exacto knife is best for this but a very sharp kitchen knife will do the job). A large plastic lid is ideal for the template. I choose to do a simple leaf shape, as I think simple is best when you are paring tuiles with something as unpretentious as pudding. * With an offset spatula carefully spread tuile batter over template creating an even thin layer. Then remove template and make several more on the same baking sheet. If you would like to mold your tuiles into shapes after they are done, cook only a few (3-4) at a time or the last will become too stiff to manipulate and will crack. Once cooked I lay my leaves over a large can of diced tomato to get a slight arch. I have, on other occasons, used a rolling pin, wooden spoon, or a muffin tin.
• Cook tuiles 3-4 minutes. Remove from oven. Using a spatula quickly and carefully remove each tuile and manipulate into desired shape. Let cool.
  

This batter yields a lot of tuiles so don't be discouraged if the first few do not work out. I like to have two sheets of parchment going: one in the oven and one ready for the oven. I pull out only the parchment sheet when the tuiles are ready, leaving the baking sheet in the oven. Once I have made my tuile shapes I simply place the other sheet with tuiles ready for the oven on the baking sheet already in the oven. I continue this way until I have used up the batter.

*Tuile Templates:
I like to design mine free hand. Or you can cut and paste a template taken from the internet, blow it up, print it and then cut it out. You would then trace it on a piece of cardboard or plastic, cut it out and there you go...

On other food fronts spring may have technically arrived, but up in the Laurentians spring is a little while away. I will have chives at the end of April and my asparagus will only be poking through at the end of May. I may have to hit the Jean Talon Market for inspiration for future posts because we are still in stew, soup and braised meats weather up here. Sigh...gotta love that fresh air though. Ice pellets tomorrow...

Here is a great conversion site! I prefer to weigh my dry ingredients when I can and I also most often work with metric so this site is very helpful. Click here to check it out.

Camino has a online contest for Quebec residents (a rare occurrence), running until the 4Th of April. A basket with over 700$ worth of Camino products and a weekend trip are included. I am not big on contests but I had to enter this one. Click here for link to contest.