It's been a while since I posted a new blog. Truth is, I've been stuck in a bit of a baking rut. I always seem to make the same things, so yesterday as I was having a day in with my little girl, I decided to try something different. I also learnt that simply substituting a recipe with gluten free flour doesn't always work!
Pre-coeliac, I used to love these:
I found a recipe for basic Viennese Fingers, swapped the flour in the recipe for gluten free, added 20g of cocoa powder and a dash of orange extract, carefully piped neat little fingers onto a baking tray and put them in the oven. The house smelled delicious and I checked on my biscuits after 10 minutes to find what can only be described as a heavenly-smelling cowpat. The biscuits had completely spread out into a very thin layer, spilling onto the bottom of the oven. Sigh! All is not lost however, as the crumbs I was left with have made for a very tasty base for a chocolate orange cheesecake. That's today's job!
Anyway, I was still hungry and bored so a few hours later I found another recipe and had another go! This time, Viennese Whirls. Following the recipe, the dough turned out a little too wet and I knew the same thing was going to happen, so I added an extra 50g of cornflour and they turned out perfectly. And just in time for the Great British Bake Off.
Viennese Whirls
Biscuits
100g unsalted butter
50g icing sugar
2 egg yolks
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
100g gluten free flour
50g cornflour
Strawberry jam
Buttercream
100g icing sugar
40g unsalted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Preheat oven to 170 degrees.
Cream the butter, sugar, egg yolks and vanilla together in a large bowl. It's best to use an electric whisk for this so you can get the mixture light and fluffy. Fold in the flours and tip into a piping bag with a large star nozzle. Pipe flat circles of the dough onto a greased baking sheet (about 5cm diameter) and bake for 12 minutes or until golden.
Transfer biscuits to a wire rack to cool and prepare the buttercream by whisking everything together until light in colour and creamy in texture.
Shake a bit of icing sugar over the biscuits and place a small blob of jam on half of them. Put a spoon of buttercream on the other half and then sandwich together.
Try one or two, for testing purposes, and then store in an airtight container for a few days.
