Treat Saturday? Lemon Viennese Whirls

I know, I know. I’m late. This week we’re obviously having a Treat Saturday rather than a Treat Friday and just this once, I think that’s ok. It is, I promise.

I’ve basically been feeling really ill all week with a sore throat and ear ache and was in so much pain! Finally booked a doctor’s appointment for Friday and then of course woke up and felt completely fine. So annoying. It did mean however, that I could finally motivate myself to get off the sofa and bake something!

This week then it’s Lemon Viennese Whirls and they are, if I do say so myself, delicious. My mother even said they’re one of the best things I’ve made for Treat Friday, which is a bold statement indeed! I have to admit, when I made them and took the photographs for this blog, I made a few mistakes and just didn’t have time to remake the recipe to rectify them. More than anything, I made my biscuits far too big! The original recipe from which I adapted these states that it will make 32 separate biscuits – 16 completed Viennese Whirls. Well, because I made my biscuits so big I only managed to make 12 separate biscuits – 6 completed Viennese Whirls. To be honest, they’re delicious but so huge they can be classified as monsters. So just try to control yourselves a little more than I did with the piping bag, don’t get carried away!

Some Final Tips Before You Get Started:

• Your mixture needs to be fairly loose and wet, if it’s too stiff it’ll be really difficult to pipe (I speak from experience). Make sure your butter is really, really soft and that the batter is really well mixed.
• Line your baking sheets with greaseproof paper and find some sort of circular stencil i.e. a glass or biscuit cutter that has around a 5cm diameter. Using this, draw circles on your greaseproof paper to give yourself guidelines for when you’re piping out your biscuits. This not only makes it easier but also means that your biscuits will be a uniform size(ish) for when you sandwich them together
• Speaking from experience again, handle your cooked biscuits very gently. They crack and break very easily!
• I’m not going to specify how many biscuits this recipe makes as obviously it depends on the size of your biscuits. Just try to make an even number for sandwiching!
• This is a great recipe in that once finished, they look really fancy but in fact, are incredibly easy to make so don’t be put off by their appearance! 

Lemon Viennese Whirls

(Adapted from The Hairy Bikers Best of British)

Ingredients

For the Biscuits:

250g Unsalted Butter, softened

50g Icing Sugar

250g Plain Flour

50g Cornflour

½ tsp. Vanilla Extract

1 tbsp. Grated Lemon Zest

1 tsp. Fresh Lemon Juice

For the Filling:

100g Unsalted Butter, softened

200g Icing Sugar

1 tbsp. Whole Milk

Drop of Vanilla Extract

75g Lemon Curd

2 Baking Sheets

Piping Bag with Star-Shaped Nozzle

1)      Preheat the oven to 190◦C. For the biscuits, in a blender mix together the unsalted butter, icing sugar, plain flour, cornflour, vanilla extract, grated lemon zest and lemon juice. Blend until well combined and soft.

2)      Line your baking sheets with greaseproof paper and stencil on your circle guidelines. Place the biscuit mixture into the piping bag with a star-shape nozzle and pipe in rounds onto the baking sheet. Bake for 13-15 minutes until slightly golden brown. Once baked, leave to cool on the baking sheets.

3)      While the biscuits are cooling, whisk together the butter and icing sugar for the butter cream. When just combined, whisk in the whole milk and vanilla extract until smooth and fluffy.

4)      Once the biscuits have cooled, cover the flat bases of half the biscuits generously with butter cream. Spread the flat bases of the remaining biscuits with around a teaspoon of lemon curd before sandwiching together with the butter-creamed biscuits. Enjoy, they’re delicious!