Chocolate & Black Cherry Viennese Whirls #GBBOBloggers2016 #GBBO Week 2:Biscuits

60 Comments

So it is week 2 of the GBBO and also my bake along linky : GBBOBloggers2016 and week 2 means biscuits. Hmmmm I am not very good at making biscuits, I have no idea why because I follow recipes to the letter with them as I don’t have the confidence to make them like I do cakes, which I often make up as I go along when it comes to new ideas.

So this week the themes were:

Signature: Iced Biscuits
Technical : Mary Berry’s Viennese Whirls
Showstopper: 3D Gingerbread Story

I decided that for once I would try my hand at the technical bake, as more often than not these are quite hard, but I would prefer not to make a biscuit sculpture, so Viennese Whirls it is then! Now because I own a copy of the new GBBO recipe book, I found Mary’s recipe and decided to add cocoa powder to mine to make them chocolate flavoured, and instead of making a raspberry jam I opted to make a black cherry one, as I was going for a black forest inspired biscuit. OK so this was my plan, and I followed the recipe to the letter bar my amendment, which just required some substitution of ingredients.

First of all I made my jam, which actually I found quite easy and I was telling my OH that maybe I should make it more often seeing how quick and easy it was. Hmmmmmm I spoke to soon. I put the freshly made jam in the fridge to set,once it was cool, maybe I should not have done this? It meant that it went really hard eeeeeeeek! However, I slowly warmed it up over a pan of simmering water and it soon became spreadable, Phew!
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Then we come on to the biscuits, which again seemed relatively easy up until the piping part! I now know having chatted to other bloggers in the #GBBOBloggers2016, I should have used a larger nozzle to make my biscuits more plump than mine which were thinner. However, they still tasted lovely so it was ok in the end (and obviously, they took less time than Mary states in her recipe), although to be honest possibly not as melt in the mouth as a Viennese Whirls should be , or as ‘whirl’ like. So for once I have managed to make a great  biscuit!  Ha ha oh the irony! However, I am sure with the larger nozzle, these would have been almost perfect!

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The buttercream was a doddle to make and so once assembled my Chocolate and Black Cherry Viennese Whirls looked like this:

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So if you have a larger piping nozzle than mine, and fancy trying out this take on Mary’s whirls, then here is my recipe for Chocolate & Black Cherry Viennese Whirls:

Chocolate & Black Cherry Viennese Whirls #GBBOBloggers2016 Week 2:Biscuits
 
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My take on Mary Berry's Viennese Whirls
Author:
Serves: 12
Ingredients
  • *The Jam*
  • 200g black cherries, stalks and stones removed (very messy!)
  • 250g of jam sugar
  • *The Biscuits*
  • 250g unsalted butter
  • 50g icing sugar, sifted
  • 175g plain flour, sifted
  • 50g cocoa powder, sifted
  • 25g cornflour, sifted
  • *The Buttercream*
  • 200g icing sugar
  • 100g butter
  • ¼ tsp vanilla extract
  • extra icing sugar for dusting
Instructions
  1. *To make the cherry jam*
  2. place the cherries in a pan and mash with a potato masher
  3. add the sugar and place the pan on a high heat and stir until the sugar has melted
  4. bring to the boil and then allow to boil for 4 minutes
  5. pour into a heatproof dish, allow to cool and then cover and chill until set
  6. *To make the chocolate biscuits*
  7. Pre heat the oven to 190oC / 170oC (fan)
  8. Cover 3 baking trays (or 2 large ones) with baking parchment and using a 4cm round cutter, draw 24 circles spaced well part across all of the sheets of paper. Then turn the paper over and use this side to place on the baking trays and to fill with biscuit mixture in a bit
  9. Place the butter and icing sugar in a large bowl ( i used my Kenwood mixer) and beat well until place, light and fluffy
  10. Sift in the flour, cocoa powder and cornflour a little at a time (I did it in 3 lots) into the butter and sugar and beat well until well combined and a smooth mixture is made which can be piped
  11. Pour the mixture into a large piping bag with a medium sized star nozzle attached
  12. Carefully pipe whirls onto each circle that you traced
  13. Place into the oven and bake for 11-15 minutes. Mary says 13-15 but my biscuits ended up being thinner so 11 minutes was about right.
  14. Allow to cool and harden
  15. Meanwhile make your
  16. *Vanilla Buttercream*
  17. place the butter into a large bowl (again I used my Kenwood) and beat well to make it softer
  18. add the icing sugar and vanilla extract and carefully beat again to make a creamy buttercream (i cover my bowl with a tea towel to start with to save icing sugar flying out everywhere!
  19. Place the buttercream, into a piping bag ready to add to your biscuits
  20. *Assembling your whirls*
  21. Spread your jam on one of your biscuits , flat side up, and pipe buttercream onto another , also flat side up
  22. Put the biscuits together and voila a Viennese Whirl
  23. continue this process with all of the biscuits
  24. Dust with a little icing sugar before serving.
  25. Keep in a tin in between eating to keep your biscuits , biscuit like!

Mummy Mishaps

If you would like to bake along with me for the new series of the Great British Bake Off, then the rules are here and you can grab my badge on my homepage and on the rules page. I look forward to seeing what you come up with and remember that at the end of the bake off, I will be holding my prize draw which has been kindly sponsored by Tesco (thank you!) who are also sponsoring some of the bloggers who link up with some vouchers to purchase ingredients. In the finals an independent judge will choose his or hers 3 favourite bakes from the final bake along (week 10).

The linky closes at 11.59pm on Monday .

So what are you waiting for, on your marks, get set and baaaaaake!!!



60 Comments

  2. Oooo they look delicious. I know this is probably weird to say but I am in love with your cream handled knife. You have no idea now how much I will be scouring car boot sales for similar 🙂 put me to shame again x

    Reply

  3. the flavour combo of these sounds lovely! It’s definitely worth watching the show & seeing where the bakers went wrong, so now I know that the mixture needs to be soft and then refrigerated to keep its shape… I wonder if your jam was cooked too long? mine used to be a bit thick too until I got an automatic jam maker & was very dubious when it finished as it was quite watery – but low & behold, once it was cooled it was perfect!

    Reply

  4. Thank you Helen – they did taste nice even if my piping was not as it should have been!
    Well, i followed Mary’s jam recipe to the letter, so it is possible i cooked too long but she said boil for 4 mins which his what I did. strange, but true lol x

    Reply

  8. Jenny your Viennese whirls look fab. So they are a bit thin but that means you can eat more right 😉
    I love the flavour combination too.

    Was hoping a biscuit recipe I had written but not posted would suffice as I am way at the moment but its doesn’t really fit the brief so hopefully Ill get a chance to post either whirls or decorated all be it a bit last minute.

    Reply

    • jennypaulin

      Thank you Jacqui – they were very moreish!
      I am sure the biscuit recipe you have in mind would be ok – after all i posted a victoria sponge last week for cake week! x

      Reply

    • jennypaulin

      awww thank you Debbie – they did taste really nice i just wish i had a better nozzle because they then would have looked more like whirls! x

      Reply

  10. Your whirls look absolutely lovely and I love the flavour combination you’ve used. My whirls also suffered from lack of the correct nozzle but I think they turned out ok despite that!

    Reply

  18. shelllouise

    The husband loves cherry and chocolate, I’ll have to give these a go for him. He’s not keen on regular Viennese whirls but I have a feeling he’ll like these ones!

    Reply

  19. Your viennese whirls look amazing! Usually everything on bake off is new to me but i did actually go through a spell of making viennese whirls earlier in the year. I don’t seem to have blogged about it though i remember i really needed to warm the piping bag in my hands to get it piping smoothly. And i remember they needed a LOT of butter! As we’ve only just got back from hols, I am linking up an iced biscuits recipe from earlier in the year this week. I hope that is ok? x

    Reply

  20. oh Jenny.. that jam… Oh my yes! How did you not just eat it all.. I would have and would have had none for the biscuits! haha!

    Reply

  23. jennymidwifeandlife

    I fear I’m letting the Jenny name down, but I’ve linked up my broken biscuits! Yours look fab. How do you find out the technical bakes ahead of time?

    Reply

    • don’t be daft ! Your broken biscuits looked great and the flavour sounded amazing so no fail!!!! You can find out on the BBC GBBO page – i think by monday or tuesday it is up (or watch preview on end of each GBBO show) x x

      Reply

    • jennypaulin

      thank you. i was going to use jam form a jar but then though, its about time I tried to make jam. x

      Reply

  25. choclette

    Oh no, the piping nozzle sounds like a nightmare, but your whirls sound so delicious and they look great anyway. I hate piping with a vengeance, so I’m feeling pleased with myself for giving the whirls a try.

    Reply

  26. RaisieBay

    They sound incredibly delicious and look amazing, well done on your biscuit success. I’ll have to get my bake on an join in next week, I’m slacking a little this year.

    Reply

  27. hijackedbytwins

    I love chocolate and cherry combination! These are going to be a must try. Thank you for hosting xx

    Reply

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