LANGUEDOC & PROVENCE SUN

• 125 g butter
• 125 g sugar
• 1 sachet of vanilla sugar
• 125 g of flour
• 4 egg whites
  

Decoration:

• Chestnut cream
• scented with vanilla
• Chantilly cream
  

Preparation

• Work the softened butter with the sugar. Add the flour then bit by bit the egg whites, lightly beaten with a fork.
• Cover a baking tray with grease-proof paper.
• Pour one spoon of batter onto the tray; spread it uniformly to obtain a circle. Repeat until the tray is covered with circles. (You may have to use the tray a number of times).
• Pre-heat the oven at 180°C (Th 5), for about 10 min.
• Keep an eye on the circles when cooking. They must stay a light golden colour.
• When cooked, lift each circle with the aid of a spatula and mould it around a glass. This needs to be done very quickly before it cools down (have a number of glasses sitting on the oven door if necessary)
• Fill the tulips with two heaped spoons of chestnut cream at the bottom, the chantilly on top and a little grated chocolate to decorate.
  

This dessert is a speciality from the Cévennes.
You can find these famous ‘tulips’ in all regional pâtisseries/ bakery where the chestnut reigns.
To succeed, I use a baking tray in silicone on which I pour two soup spoons of the batter at a time (be sure that there is enough space between each circle). I then spread the batter to form a 15 cm circle and so on. The cooking is a delicate process. If the batter is cooked too long it will be too stiff to form the shape needed. If it isn’t cooked enough it will fall apart. You need to stop cooking when the batter begins to brown at the edges. You can mould the circles around a glass turned upside down. It all depends on what shape you want.
With the dosage given you can, in theory, make around 15 tulips , but in order to get 6 perfect ones a number will be spoilt. These can be recycled as simple tuiles which taste just as good. I suggest that you prepare the tulips in advance but decorate them just before serving. Otherwise the shapes risk getting soggy and the chantilly limp. If I can do it, you can too, believe me!