Chocolate Viennese Whirls (Vegan)
Chocolate Viennese whirls - these easy vegan chocolate sandwich biscuits are rich, delicate, crumbly and melt-in-the-mouth.
Servings 11 biscuits
Ingredients
Biscuits:
- 200 g (7 oz) vegan block butter very soft
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 180 g (1 ½ cups) plain (all-purpose) flour
- 40 g (4 Tablespoons) cornflour (cornstarch)
- 20 g (2 Tablespoons) cocoa powder
- 75 g (⅔ cup) icing (powdered) sugar
- 1 Tablespoon plant milk
Ganache:
- 100 g (3 ½ oz) dark chocolate finely chopped
- 100 g (⅓ cup + 1 ½ Tablespoons) vegan double cream alternative (such as Elmlea)
- 15 g (1 Tablespoon) vegan block butter
- 1 teaspoon orange extract or ½ teaspoon peppermint extract (optional)
Instructions
- Whisk the softened vegan butter and the vanilla extract with an electric mixer until smooth.
- Sift in the flour, cornflour, cocoa powder and icing sugar and mix until well combined then mix in the milk. The dough should be stiff but malleable and pipeable, like a stiff buttercream consistency. Add a drop more milk if needed.
- Transfer the dough to a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle. You may wish to work with only half of the dough at a time.
- Pipe swirls of the dough spaced apart on a couple of lined baking sheets. I start in the centre of the circle and work outwards. They should be about 5.5 cm/2 in in diameter and you should get about 22 of them. It takes quite a bit of firm pressure to pipe the dough, but if it is too stiff to pipe, warm the piping bag up with your hands.
- Place the trays in the freezer for 15 minutes while you preheat the oven to 190°C/170℃ fan/375℉/gas mark 5.
- Bake the chilled biscuits for 15-18 minutes until they feel firm to the touch. Cool on the trays for 5 minutes then carefully transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
- To make the ganache, place the chopped chocolate in a heatproof bowl. Heat the cream and butter until just coming up to simmer then pour over the chocolate.
- Leave to stand for 5 minutes then stir until melted and smooth. Stir in the extract of your choice if you like.
- Allow to cool and thicken slightly then transfer to a piping bag fitted with a medium round nozzle.
- Pipe a generous blob of ganache onto the bottom side of half of the biscuits. Top each one with another biscuit, pressing it on gently.
Notes
- See post above for tips, details and step-by-step photos.
- As with all of my baking recipes I really do recommend using the metric measurements with a digital scale rather than the cup conversions. Cups are a wildly inaccurate measuring system and you will get far better, more consistent results using a scale, not to mention that it is also easier and less messy than cups!
- Take the butter out of the fridge at least a couple of hours before baking. It needs to be extremely soft, otherwise your dough will be too stiff to pipe.