These Chocolate Tuile Cigars with Whisky Ganache feature wafer-thin chocolate cookies loaded with boozy chocolate. This truly decadent treat provides a sweet alternative to the idea of celebratory cigars!
Have you seen the Darkest Hour yet? I love this amazing portrayal of Winston Churchill’s early days as Great Britain’s Prime Minister during World War II.
Even though I know the story from history, watching Churchill struggle to lead a government torn between negotiating a peace treaty with Hitler or fighting for liberty and freedom still felt super dramatic and suspenseful.
Talk about pressure. No wonder the guy always had a glass of whisky in one hand and a cigar in the other.
Okay, to be honest, sometimes he mixed it up and drank champagne. Never water, people! My head hurts just thinking about it.
When I volunteered to develop a recipe in honor of Darkest Hour’s nomination for best picture this year, all that drinking and smoking led me on a delicious charge toward Chocolate Tuile Cigars with Whisky Ganache.
With their authentic look, these edible cigars are sure to add a sweet surprise to your Academy Award-watching celebrations! Crisp, wafer-thin chocolate cookies loaded with boozy ganache make a truly decadent treat.
Think pirouette cookies, only chocolate inside and out, and with whisky. Yeah, it’s hard to go wrong with that.
Making the tuiles takes some practice, so you want to leave yourself plenty of time to get the hang of things. Since the cookies harden as they cool, each tuile needs to be hand-rolled right from the oven, and this means you can really only bake two at a time.
Working with piping hot cookies without completely burning your fingers can be tricky. If you have kids, you may want to bake when they’re are not around since you will almost certainly curse. Probably more than a little.
Once you get the timing down, the process of spreading batter, baking, spreading more batter while another batch bakes, rolling cookies, etc. takes on an easy rhythm, but finding that rhythm takes a bit of trial and error.
The first time I made tuiles, the process felt a bit frantic and chaotic, but the most recent batch came together super easily, probably because I realized how important it was to get organized and have everything in place and ready to use right when I needed it.
If you’re planning to serve these cookies at a party, you may want to make a test batch well ahead to help you master the technique.
Fortunately the whisky ganache filling comes together easily. The hardest part is waiting for it to cool enough to pipe into the tuiles.
The first time I tried to fill these long tuiles with ganache, I had a hard time getting an even layer all the way through the delicate, wafer-thin cookies. I traded my large round piping tip for a Bismarck tip, which has an elongated end that can reach inside the tuile to ensure even filling without cracking the cookies.
I was so excited to find this cool new tool, and I can’t wait to use it with eclairs and jelly doughnuts!
Fill the tuiles no more than an hour or two before serving to help them stay crisp; you really don’t want to miss that satisfying crunch in combination with the smooth, creamy ganache.
Once I figured out the basics of these cigar cookies, I wanted to add small edible cigar bands to complete the effect. I think I cheered in the aisle at the craft store when my daughter handed me some gold sugar paper. We even found edible adhesive which worked perfectly for attaching the bands to the tuiles.
Initially I thought I would hand-decorate each band with edible markers, but this felt like too much after I started assembling the chocolate cigars. I ended up using edible ink with a rubber stamp, which gave the bands a consistent look with much less effort.
I put my finished chocolate cigars in an old wooden cigar box. They look so realistic that they might have fooled the old prime minister himself. I’m thinking they could have helped him kick his penchant for smoking. Who can say?
These chocolate cigars join a fun collection of recipes inspired by this year’s best picture-nominated films. Check out these awesome ideas from a creative group of bloggers and let your Oscars party-planning begin!
- Phantom Thread — Mushroom Toasts from Haley at Cheap Recipe Blog
- Lady Bird — Orange Baked Chicken Sandwiches from Alice at Dining With Alice
- Dunkirk — Strawberry Brie Crostinis from Sharon at The Honour System
- Get Out — Black and White Cookies from Julia from Girl Meets Kitchen,
- The Shape of Water — Tuna Fish and Avocado Appetizer from from Greta at Pickles Travel
- Call Me By Your Name — Peach Focaccia with Arugula from Kara at K&R Adventures
- The Post — Orange Vanilla Martinis from Lane and Holly at With Two Spoons
While these Chocolate Tuile Cigars with Whisky Ganache will light up any Oscars party, they’d also make great treats for bachelor parties or baby showers.
If you’re not a fan of whisky, just leave it out. They taste amazing either way!
It isn’t often that you can offer up a chocolate dessert as a better-for-you option, so I’m excited to present this healthy substitute for celebratory cigars. If that’s not a perfect excuse to make them, I don’t know what is!
Chocolate Tuile Cigars with Whisky Ganache
Ingredients
- Chocolate Tuiles
- 3 large egg whites
- ½ cup confectioners’ sugar
- pinch kosher salt
- ½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1 tablespoon Dutch-process cocoa powder
- ¼ cup unsalted butter melted and cooled slightly
- Whisky Ganache
- 12 ounces dark chocolate finely chopped
- 1 ¼ cup heavy cream
- 2 tablespoons scotch whisky
- Tools
- 2 ½- inch dowels or wooden spoons with ½-inch round handles
- 4 silicone baking mats
- 4 insulated baking sheets
- 2 paper rectangles sized 3 ½ by 7 inches with rounded corners to use as patterns for spreading tuile batter
- large pastry bag
- large Bismarck piping tip
- edible gold paper
- paper cutter for cutting labels
- 1- inch circle punch for cutting labels
- edible marker
- small star or other shaped stamp
- edible adhesive
- shimmer dust or powdered sugar if desired for ash
Instructions
- To make tuiles, sift confectioners’ sugar over egg whites in a medium bowl. Add salt and whisk until the sugar is fully incorporated into the egg whites. Sift flour and cocoa over the top. Add butter and whisk until well combined. Scrape down the sides and let the mixture rest for at least 20 minutes before continuing.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Place paper rectangles (see Tools, above) under a silicone mat on a baking sheet. Spoon one barely mounded tablespoon of batter in the center of each rectangle. Spread the mixture with the back of small spoon to cover the rectangle as evenly as you can. The batter will be very thin.
- Bake for 7 to 9 minutes, until the tuiles look and feel dry to the touch.
- Remove the tray from the oven. Work as carefully and quickly as you can while the tuiles are very hot, which is essential for shaping. Using a thin, flat spatula, flip one of the tuiles over on the hot baking sheet. Starting from the wider edge, wrap the tuile tightly around a wooden dowel (or spoon handle). Quickly set the tuile and dowel seam-side town on a cooling rack holding gently for a moment to make sure it won’t unroll. Repeat with the second tuile. If it is too stiff to roll, return the baking sheet to the oven for 30 seconds to a minute to soften before continuing. Once tuiles cool slightly, slip them off the dowels/handles.
- Repeat with remaining batter, swapping out baking sheets and silicone mats (this is why you need 4 of each!) so you begin with a room temperature surface for the batter. If preparing ahead, store fully cooled tuiles in an airtight container until ready to use.
- For the whisky ganache, place chocolate in a medium glass bowl. Warm heavy cream over medium heat until it just comes to a boil. Pour cream over the chocolate and let sit without stirring for 2 minutes. Stir until smooth and glossy. If bits of chocolate remain, warm briefly over simmering water or in the microwave at 50 percent power for short bursts. Mix until smooth. Stir in whisky until smooth. Cover loosely with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for several hours, until it holds its shape on a spoon. To speed this process, refrigerate, stirring frequently, until the ganache cools enough to hold its shape.
- To fill the tuiles, spoon whisky ganache into a pastry bag fitted with a Bismarck tip. Pipe ganache into both ends of the tuiles to fill completely, taking care as the cookies will be quite fragile.
- To create cigar wrappers, cut 3 or 4 Sugar Sheets into 3/4-inch strips. Trim to fit around the tuiles and use edible adhesive to hold them in place. Punch circles and decorate them with stamp, if desired. Working one at a time, color the design on the stamp with an edible marker and press it firmly in the center of each circle. Attach circles atop the bands with edible adhesive.
- If you want to add “ash” to any of the tuiles, add a thin layer of edible adhesive to the tip of a cigar and dip it in luster dust or powdered sugar.
- Chill and serve within a few hours as the tuiles will soften as time passes.
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Baking goals! Suzanne, these look incredible!
Thanks, Alice! Can’t wait to make your orange baked chicken sandwiches! They look super yummy!
I can’t believe these are NOT cigars… Well done, Suzanne!
You even found a Churchill cigar box. Brilliant, all around!
Definitely not the real thing, and, in my opinion, 100 times better! Thanks, Haley, for your kind words!
How fabulous are these! What an original idea. Love it.
Glad you like them, Sharon! Thanks so much!
These are incredible! I just want to eat them all…is that wrong?
Thanks, Julia. Definitely not!
Wow! What a great idea. I think even the great man himself would be impressed, although he might sneeringly wonder why anyone would prefer a chocolate cigar over the real thing. The wooden cigar box really completes the presentation
Thanks, Tony! You may be right about his preferences, but the whisky ganache just might have won him over.
WOW! These are genius! I absolutely LOVE them!
Thanks so much, Lane! Enjoy!
Ms. Cowden, these Chocolate Cigars are fabulous. Do you accept orders for those of us less likely to achieve such perfection? I’m intetested in purchasing for an upcoming celebration.
Please reach out to me if possible. Many thanks.
So glad you like these cigars! Thank you for reaching out about the possibility of purchasing them; unfortunately, I’m not set up to sell baked goods. Good luck to you!
I made them and they went out awesome!! I designed a personal cigar label with picture of the party owner on it! How can I send a picture ? You gotta see this!
That’s so fun! Great idea to create a personal label! Thanks for sharing!