January 19, 2011

Results - Crispy Orange Tuile, Chocolate Mousse and Szechuan Pepper Ice-Cream

“Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been over 4 weeks since my last blog post”. Can you believe that it’s been 4 weeks since I posted this recipe and I still haven’t managed to post the results!?! Well I am now here with the long awaited results. I had this all ready to go before the Christmas break, but then a trip interstate, coupled with a few trips to hospital kind of put a dampener on my plans. Everything is ok now, and I can get stuck into filling cyber space with more pictures of food.

orange tuiles 5


This dessert was a little peculiar, but still packed a punch with taste. The Szechuan ice cream was slightly peppery with a lovely fragrant taste which went really well with the tart but sweet candied tomatoes. And before making this dessert, I could never have imagined that tomato and chocolate are a really great combo. I don’t know if I’ll be replacing butter for chocolate in my tomato sandwiches though. I enjoyed the crunch of the zesty tuile too, all in all it was a pretty impressive dessert, at least flavour wise. But the recipe wasn’t exactly my smoothest experience in the kitchen.

orange tuiles 6


I’ve cooked a fair few top 100 recipes since starting this blog, but by far this was the most disastrous of them all. It started with the actual recipe, the mousse called for a sheet of gelatin….of what strength? Who knows. I kinda guessed it and got it wrong, of course, so my mousse turned out a little more rubbery than I had expected, there was no whipping it once it had set, it was set to stay baby!

Then there was the orange almond tuiles. I moulded them into the perfect length and width before going into the oven, but every time the tuile came out of the over a little fatter and wonkier than it had gone in, so all my moulds turned out to be 15ft higher than I was hoping (ok that’s an exaggeration, but you get the point)

orange tuiles 3


Onto the ice cream…“Make sabayon by heating sugar and water to 118C”….errrrrrrr……what water? Did I miss something? In the ingredients list there was no mention of water and how much of it I was supposed to use, so I decided for my sanity’s sake to ditch the recipe and just make ice cream my way, and it turned out pretty good if I don't say so myself.

Another issue with the recipe, in the candied tomatoes section, it didn’t specify whether to drizzle the sugar syrup over the top or toss the tomatoes in it, I went with tossing and thankfully I got it right….sometimes tossing is the right thing to do. I normally don’t have a problem with trying to figure stuff out for myself, but on this particular day it was hot, I was running out of time and using my brain was the last thing I wanted to do, which leads me to the very last problem.

By the end of the whole saga I was over it, I wanted to just eat the darn thing. Spooning the mousse into the freakishly tall tuile moulds seemed all too hard, I broke a fair few before finally getting it in without damaging the shell. Then when it can to making the ice cream quenelles I didn’t care anymore, so I just dumped it on top. I regret it now, but at the time it was the easiest thing to do. A few happy snaps later it was all over, dessert was eaten and the turmoil of slaving in the kitchen was well and truly behind.

orange tuiles 4

6 comments:

penny aka jeroxie said...

Great to have you back! Hope all is well.
Some recipes are hard to follow. Or rather confusing. Glad to know that it still turn out well.

Hannah said...

So sorry to hear you've had some stresses over the New Year period! Really hope everything it back to perfect and happy and laughter and unicorns now :)

I'm also in awe of you for persevering with this recipe and ultimately defeating it. I would've given up at the first hurdle (probably the gelatin) and just thrown to utensils at the wall ;)

Forager @ The Gourmet Forager said...

Kudos for getting through this un-user friendly recipe! It looks gorgeous! The flavour combo certainly sounds very intriguing and unusual - never heard of Szechuan pepper in an ice cream before. Glad to hear you're back on track and hoping all is well in 2011.

Arwen from Hoglet K said...

It's amazing how often these professional recipes have big holes in them! The sichuan pepper icecream sounds amazing. I hope you'll have a happy and healthy new year from now on!

Sarah @ For the Love of Food said...

Glad to hear all is well now - I've taken 4 weeks between posts when nothing it wrong except my laziness :)

Very unusual dessert - well done for doing it at all, and especially for persevering with an incomplete and unchecked recipe! Hope it tasted really really good!

Agnes said...

ARGH it's a pet peeve of mine when recipes ask for a sheet of gelatine but then don't specify the strength. So frustrating!

And I think the water was supposed to come from your tears of frustration. ;)