After reading what each of the challenges would be for biscuit week of The Great British Bake Off, I was still umm-ing and ahh-ing about which one I would do. I ruled out the showstopper immediately though, I couldn’t be bothered with the fuss of a biscuit story construction! After last week’s bake though, I’m surprised I was still considering doing another technical.

After watching the show, I did decide on the technical again – I must be mad! I’ve never made Viennese whirls before so this one was yet another new challenge for me. Once again I used Mary’s Berry’s recipe, but as a guideline this time as I went for a twist on them with these chocolate and salted caramel whirls.

Salted caramel is one of my absolute favourite flavours. It has actually been featured in my Bake Off recipes in the past two years; this salted caramel & chocolate tart and this cheesecake.

Ingredients (makes 12)

Biscuits

• 250g soft unsalted butter
• 50g icing sugar
• 200g plain flour
• 25g cocoa powder
• 25g cornflour

Buttercream filling

• 100g soft unsalted butter
• 175g icing sugar
• 25g cocoa powder

Salted caramel filling

• 75ml double cream
• 50g light muscovado sugar
• 15g salted butter
• sea salt

Method

Biscuits

• Preheat oven to gas 5/190c/375f.
• On 3 sheets of baking paper (big enough to fit on a baking tray), draw 8 circles using a 4cm round cutter as a template, spaced well apart. Turn over so the pencil marks are underneath. (You can do this on 3 separate baking trays but I did it in batches).
• In a large bowl, beat together the butter & sugar until pale & fluffy. Sieve in the flour, cocoa, and cornflour and beat until thoroughly mixed. (I did this in my stand mixer). The mixture should be dough like, but needs to be soft enough to pipe.
• Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a medium star nozzle (I used a Wilton 1M) and pipe 24 swirled rounds inside the circles on the baking sheet.
• Bake in the centre of the oven for 13-15 minutes, leave to cool on the tray for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack to cool completely and harden.

Filling

• For the salted caramel filling, add the cream, butter and sugar to a pan. Mix well and melt over a medium heat. When it starts bubbling, turn down slightly and heat for a further 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently until it thickens (when it slowly drips off a spoon should be enough). Add sea salt to taste, mix well, then transfer to a bowl and leave to cool. (It will thicken as it cools so keep stirring so it doesn’t form a crust).
• While the salted caramel is cooling, mix together the butter, icing sugar, and cocoa powder for the buttercream. Beat until light & fluffy.
• When the salted caramel has completely cooled, turn over the whirls so they are flat side up, and spread the caramel over half of them.
• Spoon the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle (I used a Wilton 1M again) and swirl onto the other half of the whirls.
• Carefully place the caramel halves onto the buttercream halves, and enjoy!

I have to admit, I did get a little frustrated with the whirls as I had a couple of piping bag disasters. I only had Poundshop ones in the house and they aren’t the strongest, so burst after piping the first couple! Then I made a paper piping bag and again, it burst after piping a couple of whirls. Well, the nozzle actually popped out of the end! So finally, I just doubled up on the original piping bags, and voila!

They piped well in the end as you can see, but they didn’t bake too well! So I put the next two batches in the fridge like Mary suggested on the show; but no, the same thing happened.

Nonetheless, I think they turned out okay once assembled! They are crumbly and melt in the mouth just as a whirl should be, and the chocolate & caramel flavours are perfect together.

Linking to:
#GBBOBloggers2016 with Mummy Mishaps