So we're getting towards the end of the Easter school holidays and I'm so looking forward to getting my sanity back.. well, what little I have left. Isabelle goes back to school on Tuesday but hubby took a few days off work (he only just had 4 days off over Easter!! grrr!!) and he will be back to work on Thursday next week, so it looks like I get Friday to myself, right before we head into another weekend.
But I digress. Today's entertain Isabelle idea was to have a baking day. So yesterday I came up with several recipes (all sweet I might add LOL) and this morning Isabelle decided she wanted to make 'normal' cakes. She meant butterfly buns. So we couldn't do anything further until she had 'stabbed the eggs' (beaten) for her normal cakes. Once these cakes were in the oven cooking we moved on to our next recipe... Viennese Fingers, except I decided to do whirls too and Isabelle insisted that we also have some stars.
Here's Isabelle guarding her stars till they went into the oven.
And here's the final result of one of my Viennese Whirls (feel free to lick the screen, it's calorie free that way)
I thought I'd put the recipe in too for anyone who fancies making them. Apparently the ones in our fridge keep jumping out each time my hubby walks past. It's a good job he's good at catching or they'd be all over the floor. He never puts them back in the fridge though. Viennese Whirls don't last long in our house.
Viennese Fingers/Whirls
• 125g unsalted butter, softened
• 25g icing sugar
• 2 large pinches of baking powder
• 125g plain flour
• 1/2tsp vanilla essence
• about 50g dark or milk chocolate (I used a bit more, I'm generous LOL)
buttercream for the filling
Directions
1) Beat the butter until really soft, then add the sugar and beat again until light and fluffy.
2) Add the baking powder, flour and vanilla essence and beat to make a fairly firm dough, then spoon the mixture into a piping bag.
3) Cover a couple of baking sheets with non-stick baking parchment and pipe 10cm-long fingers, (I made whirls aswell) spaced well apart.
4) Bake at gas mark 3/170ºC/325ºF for about 10 minutes until pale golden brown, then set aside to cool.
5) Break the chocolate into small pieces, tip into a bowl, then stand the bowl over a pan of simmering water. Stir until melted. (I nuked mine in the microwave)
6) Make up the buttercream and spread onto one whirl (finger) and place a second on top to make a sandwich. Sprinkle with a bit of icing sugar - a dusting.
7) Dip both ends of the biscuits in chocolate, or one side of the whirld and lay on non-stick paper and put in the fridge to set (if you can keep your hands off them for long enough LOL)
You may be lucky enough to make some that aren't Kamakazi or have a deathwish that jump out of the fridge.
