If I could pick a favourite biscuit, one to eat for the rest of my life and never eat another type of biscuit again... I would pick Viennese biscuits.
They are soft, the perfect amount of crumbly and just melt away into your mouth. I could absolutely sit and eat a whole packet of them, without thinking twice. Please tell me I'm not the only one who could.
For this Cookie Countdown, I am meant to be challenging myself and I think to most, Viennese biscuits may not seem like a challenge. I've included Viennese biscuits for this reason and this reason alone: I want to eat them. They're a classic biscuit that everyone needs to make at some point in there lives, if not every Christmas. They are so simple, require staple ingredients and take hardly any time at all to bake.
The only tip I would give when making these biscuits, is you have to make sure that your butter is at room temperature and super soft - not melted, but very soft. This is because if you try and use cold butter, you can beat it for a while, but if it's not room temperature it will be very, very stiff to pipe.
When your butter is room temperature, it will still be a stiff mixture to pipe, but using colder butter will make it ten times harder. So make sure you take your butter out the day before or at least cut into smaller cubes and place a hot glass over it for a few mins.
You need to make sure that you have got a good quality piping bag and a shape in mind for your biscuits, the possibilities truly are endless with shapes. When it comes to piping, you may think the mix is too stiff to pipe but keep going; the mix is designed to be thick so it keeps it's shape while baking, so that when you take it out the oven, you still see those sharp designs on the biscuit.
It can be frustrating trying to pipe these, but stick with them, they are so well worth it in the end. I guess that is the real challenge with viennese biscuits, not throwing the piping bag down in a tantrum... which very nearly happened with me. But we got there in the end. This recipe just requires some muscles...
Have you ever tried Viennese biscuits?
Viennese Biscuits
Ingredients:
- Preheat the oven to 180c/350f and line a baking tray with greaseproof paper.
- Beat the butter and icing sugar together until light and fluffy, then add the flour, cornflour, vanilla extract and milk together until smooth. The mixture may be on the thick side, but this is what you need.
- Using a star nozzle in a piping bag and then put the mixture into the piping bag. Pipe shapes onto the baking tray, leaving 1 inch between the shapes to allow for a slight spread. These biscuits won't spread too much.
- Bake for 10-12 minutes or until slightly golden brown towards the base of the biscuit. You still want them to be pale on top as this means they will be soft. Leave to cool on the tray for 5 minutes before moving to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Optional, now you can either dip your biscuits into the melted chocolate and leave to dry on some greaseproof or drizzle your chocolate across the biscuits.
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