Cookie cups support sorbet, and more

So I’ve been on this sorbet kick. My freezer’s full of it. Strawberry sorbet. Apricot sorbet. Lemon Sorbet. Blood orange sorbet. Kiwi sorbet.

I also have a recipe for chocolate sorbet, thanks to my friend, Alice, who called to tell me just how great it was.

Oh-my-gosh-it’s-just-cocoa-powder-sugar-water-and-it’s-so-easy!

I think we need a sorbet support group.

Even so, as much as I love the icy smoothness of the nearly Weight-Watcher approved sorbet, it needs something. Something crunchy, a different texture, something.

For some reason, I just can’t plop a scoop of sorbet in a bowl and call it good enough.

We’ve discussed before how to make chocolate cups for sorbet, much like I make chocolate leaves. Surely you’re sick of me talking about those leaves, but for those who are new here, let me just say that basically, you cover the outside of a a little bowl with plastic wrap and then smear it with melted chocolate. Let it harden and you’ve got yourself a chocolate bowl.

OK, that’s nice. But I wanted a cookie bowl for my sorbet scoops.

So I started experimenting with tuiles, those super-thin wafers that form to whatever shape you place them upon. They taste slightly like fortune cookies, and have that same consistency, too, probably from the egg whites.

Tuiles cookies are so named for their resemblance to French tuiles – roof tiles – which is why Julia Child favored a rolling pin to form her cookie’s shape into a classic tuile, which she set upon the dessert.

I wanted bowls to embrace the sorbet. I tried three different recipes that I’d saved forever in my clipped-recipes file.

What a mess. What a waste of time and ingredients. They were all total disasters. Mainly, the biggest problem was they were chewy, not crunchy. I’m talking taffy-chewy, not bagel-chewy. And perhaps this part was my fault, but they were really thick.

Horrible. Not fit for the birds.

Finally, I sought counsel in the place I should have tried in the first place: Julia Child’s “The Way to Cook.” Her recipe turned out perfectly (of course).

She recommend tuiles as accompaniments to sherbet, ice cream and fruit desserts.

I recommend when in doubt, go to Julia Child.

Or maybe buy empty ice cream cones and call it good enough.

Printer-friendly recipe

Almond Wafers: Tuiles aux Amandes

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.

Butter the outside of all the muffin cups on a muffin tin. Set aside.

Cover baking sheets with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugar together in a bowl with a wooden spoon. When soft and fluffy, add the egg whites, stirring only enough barely to blend. Sift the flour onto the mixture and fold with a rubber spatula. When almost completely blended, fold in the ground almonds, almond extract and vanilla.

Working with just 1 cookie sheet at a time, drop 1-tablespoon gobs of batter onto prepared cookie sheets, placing batter about 3 inches apart. With the back of a spoon, smear out each batter spot into a thin, almost transparent disk 2 1/2 inches in diameter. Top each one with some almonds.

Bake in the center of the oven until a 1/8-inch border around the cookies look light brown.

Quickly slide a spatula under a cookie; lift it off and gently form it onto the outside of the upside-down bowl. Repeat this step quickly (before cookies harden) with the rest of the cookies.

(Note: The wafers lose their crispness if they’re left out. They’ll last in an airtight container for a couple of days.)