Bake off Inspiration: Viennese Whirls


Hi again! It feels like a life time since my last post however, these last two weeks have been pretty busy with a holiday to Spain and preparation to go back to uni but I've finally got round to writing up another recipe. Enjoy. 


It's that time of year again, The Great British Bake Off has finally returned to our screens and treated us to cake, biscuit, bread and batter week already! 
Like many bakers I love to try out and adapt some of these recipes that they use on the show and I thought it was about time I gave Viennese Whirls a whirl (excuse the pun!). 
These were actually a lot simpler than I thought they would be and could defiantly be adapted using different flavours to add your own twist. 

Viennese Whirls 

Prep time: 15 minutes
Cooking time: 15 minutes
Serves: 12

Ingredients: 

Biscuits:
  • 250g softened butter 
  • 50g icing sugar
  • 225g flour 
  • 25g cornflour 
  • 1 tsp milk 
Buttercream: 
  • 100g softened butter 
  • 200g icing sugar 
  • 1tsp milk 
Strawberry Jam: 
  • 250g jam sugar
  • 1/2 lemon juice and zest 
  • 250g fresh strawberries 

Method:

Preheat the oven to 190 degrees Celsius, and line two baking trays with grease proof paper. With a pencil draw 12 circles on the lined trays using a 5cm cutter as a guide. 
Place the butter and icing sugar into a bowl and beat together until pale and smooth. Finally, sift in the flour and corn flour, making sure to mix well until all ingredients are fully incorporated. 
*If the mixture is a little too stiff to pipe add about a teaspoon of milk to loosen the mixture slightly. 

Prepare a piping bag with a star nozzle (I used a Wilton 2D) and place the biscuit dough into the piping bag. Then pipe 24 rounds onto the baking trays, making sure to stay inside of the circles drawn earlier. 
Place in the oven on the middle shelf for 13 to 15 minutes or until pale golden in colour. 
Once done leave on the baking tray to harden slightly, then transfer the biscuits onto a wire cooling rack to cool completely. 



For the jam place the sugar, lemon juice and zest and 1.5 tablespoons of water into a pan and gently heat until the sugar is dissolved. 
Once the sugar is dissolved add the chopped strawberries. 
Bring the jam to the boil over a medium heat and boil for roughly 3-4 minutes, or slightly longer if a thicker jam is desired (up to 10 minutes). 
Using a sugar thermometer heat the jam until it reaches 105 degrees Celsius. Remove the jam from the heat to cool slightly, then transfer it into a sterile container. 


Next, to make the buttercream place the softened butter and icing sugar into a bowl and cream together until smooth and fully combined. Add a teaspoon of milk if needed to loosen the mixture ready for piping. 

To finish the biscuits place a level teaspoon of jam onto the flat side of one of the biscuits. Then on another biscuit pipe the buttercream. Sandwich both halves together placing light pressure onto the biscuit to keep them in place. 


I hope you enjoyed learning how to make these simple but elegant biscuits, and I can't wait to see what other recipes we get to see on this series of The Bake off. 
Happy Baking!

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