7. Viennese Fingers

 

For another break from the cake, I decided to skip a few chapters and bake some more biscuits instead. I've always loved Viennese biscuits, and these totally lived up to expectations. They were easy to make; again, there were relatively few ingredients, and quite straightforward processes involved. I'm wondering if using the electric whisk is really the right way to go with these biscuits, because although everything gets nicely beaten together, it's a bit of a pain when the mixture gets all clogged up around the beaters. Anyway, I learnt something new while making these; how to use a piping bag properly. Mum was on hand to assist in my novice attempt to get the quite dense mixture down to the nozzle; it was actually quite hard work piping the biscuits out! They looked a bit like funny little sandworms on the baking sheet when I'd piped them, but I managed to get the required 20 biscuits out, with a few hand-moulded blobs too, which I wasn't expecting. It seems a little goes a long way where these biscuits are concerned. I really need to trust Mary more...

The biscuits had 11 minutes in the oven, and slid off the tray with ease. I left them cooling for a while before melting the chocolate, and was worried they'd crumble, being a bit delicate round the edges. It was immensely satisfying dunking them in the melted chocolate, albeit a bit messy. They were then put in the fridge to finish setting, because we were too impatient to wait any longer for the chocolate to harden. They did stick to the rack a bit unfortunately.

Baker's verdict: a bit fiddly, but easy enough to make. Lovely light, buttery biscuits - very moreish.

Husband rating: 9/10 - no complaints; he's saving the 10 for something unbeatable.

Dad and Uncle rating: 10/10 -  they were very impressed.

6. Death By Chocolate Cake

If you were going to meet your end in a chocolatey fashion, I'm sure this cake would help. The cake itself simply has cocoa powder in it; it's the icing that might cause artery cloggage! Instead of butter, sunflower oil is used and there's some golden syrup in there too. With the addition of milk, a mixture of a very wet consistency is formed, and two fairly sticky sponges emerge.After cooling, the cakes need to be sliced in half; managed with relative ease.

Picture 1 shows the icing: the product of 450g of plain chocolate and 200g of butter. It's a huge amount, designed to sandwich each half sponge together and cover the top and sides. It tasted heavenly (we had to lick the pallet knife when I'd finished icing, of course), but you'd not want much of it in one sitting!My first attempt at icing a whole cake was a bit cack-handed to say the least, but I sort of found a technique and don't think I did too badly for a first attempt. I don't think I overheated the chocolate - it looked pretty shiny to me. The picture on the right shows the semi-finished product, and if I make this cake again I think I'd leave it at that. Just serve it with cream and some raspberries or boozy cherries maybe.

This is the cake post-decoration. I had to coarsely grate plain and white chocolate (which Joe ended up doing for me thanks to my jitters about grating my fingers). I'm now quite eager to learn a bit more about chocolate-craft when decorating cakes; I wasn't happy with the end result, which made it look a bit of a mess really.

When sliced, the cake looked lovely. The icing had set firm, which created a nice contrast in textures between a very light sponge and quite solid chocolate. I'm pleased to have produced a cake which looked a bit professional; a step beyond the basic sponge sandwich variety. It wasn't too sickly (certainly not sweet) but you'd need to eat to your means!
Baker's verdict: a challenge; some anxiety about whether the sponges were cooked enough. Tasted lovely. I'd make this again.
Husband rating: 9 - very tasty; very nice chocolate icing.

5. Fork Biscuits

I've decided to stray slightly from my order of baking by making these biscuits; I wanted to bake something but thought the two rather decadent chocolate cakes I've got to make warranted an occasion more special than a same-old, same-old Thursday! I'm so excited by this project that I threw a wobbly this week because I needed an extra baking sheet for these, and then it was too late in the evening to be eating biscuits, so I didn't bake anything. I think I had withdrawal symptoms, feeling bereft without my apron! 

So, these are the first biscuits in the biscuit chapter, simply called 'Fork Biscuits' (note the fork marks), apparently derived from an old Cordon Bleu recipe. They only contain three ingredients: butter, self-raising flour and caster sugar. I keep having crises of confidence about what constitutes 'softened butter' (as daft as that sounds; I did have a cheese straw disaster before Christmas because the butter was too soft), but I braced myself for a disaster and happily it didn't happen. The dough took a while to form; it began as lots of flaky crumbs but I was eventually able to work it into the required 'balls'. They took just over 15 minutes to bake, smelt lovely and buttery and, despite being a bit 'rustic' looking, acquired a nice golden colour.

Baker's verdict: easy to make, with a bit of faith; lovely taste and a texture much like shortbread.

Husband rating: 8.25 - really, really tasty but could've been more perfect in appearance. Tried and tested by colleagues who asked for second helpings.

P.S. Since starting my blog, I've had two comments about it being an inspiration to bake!