Impress your holiday guests with these white chocolate peppermint tuile cookies, crispy chocolate wafers filled with a sweet minty mousse.
I’m not sure why I added tuile cookies to my baking bucket list but when I revisited my list a few weeks ago, I was excited to try my hand at them at making them. I knew I wanted to make a tuile cookie stuffed with something because, seriously, who wouldn’t want to eat a cookie stuffed with a delicious filling? And, since we’re heading into the holiday season, I chose to make chocolate tuiles and filled them with a white chocolate peppermint mousse.
The chocolate tuiles are rather mild in flavor but they’re very crisp and they’re the perfect vehicle for holding the fluffy, white chocolate mousse. Tip: Serve these cookies within an hour of assembling to ensure they stay crisp.
The white chocolate peppermint mousse is lick-the-bowl delicious! It reminded me of a sweet peppermint candy, nothing too overpowering just subtle hints of vanilla and holiday mint. The mousse starts with a base of white chocolate ganache which you fold into a bowl of freshly made whipped cream. To finish it off, you folded in candy cane pieces for a little crunch and the result is a sweet, silky white chocolate peppermint mousse. I actually enjoyed eating this straight from the bowl, no tuile cookie involved!
Making the Tuile Batter
Making tuile batter is quite easy, just 5 main ingredients — butter, sugar, cocoa powder, flour & egg whites. All the ingredients whip together easily in a stand mixer resulting in a stiff, thick batter. Looking at the batter, it appears as if it won’t make much but since tuiles are spread so thin, the batter actually results in about 50-60 cookies, which means this recipe is rather time-consuming because you bake the tuiles in small batches of 4-6 cookies at a time.
Tuiles Require a Stencil
When I first looked into making tuile cookies, a stencil was suggested. After searching a few blogs, I also saw an option for creating your own template by tracing a shape onto parchment paper and spreading the batter by hand to fill the pattern.
My first attempt where I tried to spread the batter into the circles by hand.
Not wanting to invest in a tuile template for just one baking session, I chose to go the ‘make your own route’. When it was time to make the cookies, I took a 3-inch round cookie cutter and traced it on to my parchment paper to create a template and began spreading the batter as thin as I could into the circles using an offset spatula. The cookies coming out of the oven were fine using this method, maybe slightly thick, but I felt okay about the result.
However, I hated how time-consuming it was to spread the batter evenly into the circles by hand. It was taking me longer to spread the batter into the hand-drawn circles than it was to actually bake the cookies. And that’s when I decided to make my own stencil.
Innovating in Real-Time
I traced the same 3-inch cookie cutter circles onto an old silicon baking mat and cut out the circles to form a stencil. I then placed the silicone mat on top of parchment paper and using my offset spatula, I spread the batter into the cutout circles, scraped away the excess then carefully peel off the stencil to reveal six perfectly round tuile cookies ready for baking.
My handmade tuile template using an old silicon baking mat.
I found this method to be much easier, way more efficient, and the baked tuile’s thickness was perfectly even when compared to my original hand-spread tuiles. #lessonlearned If you choose to make these cookies, you can DIY your own tuile template as I did or you can purchase one on Amazon, which is probably cheaper than ruining a silicone baking mat.
Time to Bake & Roll
My tuile template made six tuiles at a time but I found I could only roll about 3 tuiles at a time once they were removed from the oven. When I got to tuile number four, the cookie had started to cool and it cracked before I could properly roll it into the cone shape.
To account for this, I adjusted my baking time to 3-minutes per cookie sheet. I’d then pull the cookies out, quickly roll three of the cookies into their tuile cone shape then pop the remaining three cookies, still on the baking sheet, bake into the oven to ‘warm up’ for 1 more minute then repeat the rolling process with the remaining three cookies.
Just like I didn’t have the proper tuile template, I also didn’t have a tool to roll my tuile cookies around once they came out of the oven so I improvised using the pestle from my mortar and pestle to form a cone shape. Creating the cone shape took a little bit of practice but luckily this batter makes a ton of cookies which allows for the learning curve.
Fill & Enjoy!
Filling the cookies is the easiest part of the entire process. Just place the white chocolate mousse into a piping bag, cut a 1/2 inch hole into the bag and fill the chocolate tuile cones. You can choose to decorate the tuile cookies with more crushed peppermint, sprinkles, or just leave them as-is.
Plan and Serve Immediately
The chocolate tuiles should be made the day you plan to serve them. However, the mousse can be made up to a day in advance (just don’t mix the candy cane pieces in until serving/filling) and stored in the fridge until you’re ready to assemble. I’d recommend filling the tuiles right before serving to ensure the cookies stay crisp. I found that the longer the cookies sit with the mousse, the softer they become. And unfortunately, these cookies don’t keep well either. So eat up!
Check out my full 2019 baking bucket list here!
- For the tuile cookies
- ½ cup unsalted butter, softened
- ⅔ cup confectioner's sugar
- 1 cup all-purpose flour
- 3 tablespoons cocoa powder
- 4 egg whites
- pinch of salt
- white chocolate peppermint mousse, recipe below
- sprinkles & crushed peppermint for decorating, optional
- Preheat the oven to 400F and line a cookie tray with parchment paper. Place your tuile template on top of the parchment paper and set aside.
- Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and salt into a medium-sized bowl and set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the softened butter for 2-3 minutes then add in the confectioner's sugar. Cream together for 4-5 minutes until smooth.
- Add in the egg whites, one at a time. The mixture may look 'curdled' but just keep mixing and scraping the sides of the bowl.
- Lastly, add in the flour-cocoa mixture all at once and mix until just combined. The batter will be thick.
- Using an offset spatula, thinly spread the batter into tuile template, scraping away excess. Once all molds are filled, gently peel the template off of the parchment paper (my template made 6 cookies at a time).
- Bake the cookies for 3-4 minutes (depending on thickness). Remove from oven and quickly roll the tuiles, while hot, into a cone shape. Set the cookies on a wire rack to cool completely. If you're unable to roll all the tuiles without them breaking, pop the remaining tuiles back into the oven for an additional 30-60 seconds to 'warm-up' then continue rolling.
- When ready to serve, place the white chocolate peppermint mousse into a piping bag. Cut a hole in the bag that's about a ½ inch wide (to ensure the peppermint candy fits through) and fill each of the chocolate tuile cones. Decorate with sprinkles or additional crushed peppermint as desired.
- Serve immediately as these cookies do not keep well once assembled.
- 3 cups heavy whipping cream, separated
- 12 ounces white chocolate chips
- ½ teaspoon peppermint extract
- ¼-1/3 cup crushed peppermint pieces
- Place the white chocolate chips in a heatproof bowl and set aside.
- In a saucepan over medium heat, warm ¾ cup heavy cream until hot, just simmering but not boiling.
- Pour the hot cream over the white chocolate chips, let sit for 2-minutes then stir the mixture together until smooth. Stir in the peppermint extract. Place the bowl in the fridge to chill for at least 30-minutes.
- Once the white chocolate is chilled, begin making the whipped cream by placing the remaining 2¼ cups of whipping cream into the bowl of a stand mixer. Mix on high until stiff peaks form.
- Remove the bowl from the mixer and gently fold in the chilled white chocolate into the whipped cream. Do this gently as to not deflate the whipped cream.
- Chill the mixture for at least 60-minutes before serving. Right before serving, fold in the crushed candy cane pieces.
Beautiful! Love the idea of using the pestle as a molding tool.