Has it been a month already since the last challenge? Time seems to have passed so quickly, yet the yule log and the holidays associated with it seem at once long gone…I’ve been a bit preoccupied with time lately (the recent season premiere of LOST has something to do with it, no doubt), or just preoccupied in general, perhaps. I had visions of “Rock Band” inspired guitar tuiles that never materialized thanks to various projects I’ve got going on, but oh well…
January’s Daring Bakers challenge was all about keeping it light. A tuile, either sweet or savory, or nougatine, were all options this month. Inspired by my recent class with Johnny Iuzzini, I decided to recreate certain elements from the class, partly to see if I could indeed successfuly execute the recipes again. This month, I made peanut nougatine with rum and coke ice cream, and caramelized bananas flambeed with rum.
I tried two shapes for the nougatine – one free form and one cut out in circles. I did not want my nougatine to be too dense, so I chopped the peanuts instead of keeping it whole or halved. They were still a bit dense after introducing the caramelized sugar, so I manually stretched the nougatine to intentionally create holes or a lighter effect. The bananas were caramelized and flambeed with a bit of rum, and the rum was further emphasized in the rum and coke ice cream. Incidentally, the recipes for the caramelized bananas and ice cream are available in Iuzzini’s new book, Dessert Fourplay.
This month’s challenge is brought to us by Karen of Bake My Day and Zorra of 1x umruehren bitte aka Kochtopf. They have chosen Tuiles from The Chocolate Book by Angélique Schmeink and Nougatine and Chocolate Tuiles from Michel Roux.