Pictures By Alan

Several people asked for the recipe, so here it is. I got it from The International Cookie Cookbook, by Nancy Baggett. These are almond ‘tile’ wafers, so called because they are shaped much like curved ceramic roof tiles. These cookies are made in France and Spain, and they’re sometimes called tuiles, which is French for tile.

Ingredients for about 30 cookies:

5 Tblsp unsalted butter

1/4 c (about two large) egg whites

A pinch of salt

3/4 c + 1 Tblsp powdered sugar

1/4 tsp almond extract

1/3 c + 2 Tblsp all-purpose or unbleached white flour

1/2 to 2/3 c sliced unblanched almonds

More butter for greasing things

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Set out several coffee mugs, or wine bottles, or rolling pins, or any combination of those, lying sideways to make a curved surface. Butter the edge. You will use these to put the curve in the cookies as they cool.

Warm the butter at very low heat. Set it aside before it completely melts; allow it to finish melting slowly.

In a large mixing bowl, beat the egg whites and salt with a wire whisk until frothy. Slowly sift in the sugar, whisking until smooth. Whisk in the almond extract. Slowly whisk in the flour. Slowly whisk in the melted butter. If the butter is too hot, it will cook the egg whites, so you want it just barely melted.

The result of all this will be more like a batter than a dough. Generously grease a baking sheet with butter. With a spoon, drop four or five small dollops of batter on the sheet, with plenty of room between. Place a lot of almond slices on the top of each.

Bake on the top rack for 5 to 7 minutes. You’ll know they’re done because the edge will begin to brown; when it’s browned about half an inch in they’re ready to come out. Remove the baking sheet and quickly remove the cooling cookies from the sheet and rest them on the side of the coffee mugs/wine bottles/rolling pins/whatever. The cookies are very soft and will wrap around the cylindrical thing, hardening shaped like a ceramic roof tile. Repeat until the batter is gone.

Some notes:

The cookies harden pretty fast after they come out. You have to be quick in moving them to the cylinders to cool.

I’ve made this recipe many times, and I’ve gotten pretty good at it. I now do eight cookies on a sheet.

It helps if the baking sheets are washed between each batch. Also wash the spatula between each batch.

The butter used for greasing things tends to get too soft to use easily. When this happens I put it in the freezer for a few minutes to harden it.

The finished cookies are delicate and go stale easily. Store them in something airtight.

These are particularly time-intensive cookies. With snickerdoodles I can put thirty on a sheet, so a large batch works out to maybe fifteen seconds per cookie. These are about sixty seconds each in a large batch.