Hey Joe

Last time we spoke on the phone, you said you wanted something ‘chocolatey, shortbreadey, ganachey’. I won’t lie to you, I don’t think ‘ganachey’ is a word. But I came up with a recipe that is all three of those things, including ‘ganachey’. This is my take on a Viennese Whirl. It’s two chocolate, shortbread like biscuits, sandwiched together with a chocolate ganache… they are SO peng. I’ve given you your mug measurements again, they’re in brackets next to the normal people measurements.

I’ll give you a couple of reviews so you know how good they are, ‘my second favourite bake, after the apple and blackcurrant bakewell tart‘ (Kanhai), ‘the business’ (dad), mum didn’t say anything. She just ate them, so I have no review from her. I’ll make one up from her – ‘very good’ (mum).

Ingredients

Chocolate Viennese Biscuits

• 160g unsalted butter, very soft (just over half a pack of butter)
• 65g icing sugar, sifted (half a mug of unsifted icing sugar, or just under half a mug if sifted)
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract optional
• 170g plain flour (just under a full mug)
• 1 tablespoon cocoa powder
• A splash of milk

Chocolate Ganache

You will have a bit of left over ganache with this recipe

• 100g dark chocolate
• 150ml double cream
• 1 tablespoon caster sugar (golden or white)
• A handful of chopped hazelnuts optional

Method

Start by making your ganache. Break the chocolate into small chunks. Set the chocolate aside in a mixing bowl. To make ganache, you heat cream and sugar until it boils and then pour over chocolate, I’ll explain it properly below.

Add the cream and the sugar into a heavy base saucepan. Heat this on a medium heat bringing the cream to a simmer, stirring continuously. Once the mixture is simmering and all the sugar has dissolved completely, bring the mixture to a boil. Once boiling remove from the heat and straight away, pour over the chocolate, whisking as you pour.

Cover the ganache with cling film, making sure the cling film is touching the ganache in the bowl and set it aside to cool.

Next make the biscuits. Pre heat your oven to 170 and line two baking trays with greaseproof paper.

Beat together the butter and sifted icing sugar until light and fluffy (this will take about 2 mins). Beat in the vanilla extract now, if you are using it, and a small pinch of salt.

Mix in your sifted flour, cocoa powder and generous splash of milk. Try not to over mix this, just until you can’t see any more dry flour.

Get the dough into biscuit shapes on your tray. There are two ways you can do this. A traditional Viennese Whirl is made by piping the dough into circles or rosettes with a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle. This is the way I used. You can also use a teaspoon. Scoop a heaped teaspoon of dough, roughly roll it into a ball with your fingers and place it on the tray. Use the tips of your fingers to flatten it slightly.

Whatever way you do it, they should be roughly 6cm in diameter – a bit smaller than a digestive biscuit – and spaced well apart on the trays. You should get about 16-18 biscuits. Bake for 15 mins or until firm to touch. It’s hard to tell if it’s done because of the chocolate colour – but have faith, they’ll taste good either way.

Once out the oven leave the biscuits to cool completely. When they are cool, pair up the biscuits. Give the ganache a stir and spread it generously on one biscuit per pair and sandwich the other biscuit on top.

You can sprinkle some chopped hazelnuts on top of the ganache to make a kind of baci kiss biscuit. You’ll need to spread a bit of ganache on the biscuit that you sandwich on top if you do this, so it sticks to the hazelnuts.

Have a good Chocolatey, shortbready, ganachey biscuit. Love Caitlin xxx