Hold your breath, I’m going in!

It’s been a while since my last post; which almost feels like a confession! 

 

I’ve toyed with the idea of a summary of 2020, but I think most people probably want to see the back of last year and want to look forward to what the future may hold. I would though like to take a minute to thank all those who have purchased my gluten free cookbook (still available on this site if you haven’t bought yours yet!).  As I think I’ve said before; I don’t think I ever set out to write a cookbook.  It certainly took way longer than I thought; and I enjoyed every minute of it.  A huge learning curve and one I may write about in a subsequent post.  Its said everyone has a book in them, but do they have the time or inclination?

Do we have two books in us……?

I have not stopped creating recipes though; they may not becoming as thick and fast as to when I started this blog about 6 years ago, but the enthusiasm for recreating everyday bakes into gluten free alternatives is still there.  After all, I have something like 6 notebooks worth of recipes; some work, some need work and some won’t be tried again!  Now is certainly the time to look at revisiting some of the contents within those pages.

And so here is one of those recipes. Possibly not on top of everyone’s to bake list, but they are relatively easy to make and bake.  I really don’t like complicated.  Oh and to help a recent conversation, are they ‘swirls’ or ‘whirls’?  I’ve included 2 photos to give you a couple of ideas of how to finish your bake prior to cooking; larger biscuits dipped in chocolate or smaller ones; stuck together with jam and buttercream.  I’ll let you decide.  You could also flavour you base mix with lemon or orange rind or add in some cinnamon or similar spice.  Or just keep them plain and simple.

As with other recipe creations, swopping out ‘normal’ flour for gluten free flour does not always work.  The flour acts very differently.  Traditional Viennese biscuits have equal quantities of fat and flour, not here.  In fact this is the 4th iteration of this recipe and as I started to write this post, I changed the ratios again to get a firmer spiral once piped.  Needless to say swopping one for another, initially just gave me a tasty puddle of biscuit.  The sacrifices I make to create a tasty bake for you 🙂

Enough of the waffle.

190g soft butter

1/3rd teaspoon Xanthan Gum

180g Rice Flour

60g Cornflour

50g Icing Sugar

I used a stand mixer for this, but you can equally use and hand held electric whisk or beat by hand with a wooden spoon. You’ll need a piping bag and either a star nozzle or 1M nozzle to pipe with. Remember that the finished mix/paste will be quite stiff to pipe.  So your piping nozzle only needs to stick out of the bag a little bit – just enough for the nozzle to pipe out. Too far out and the mixture in the bag will be forced out along with the nozzle, as you need a little more pressure squeezing the bag to pipe than say, piping buttercream.

Line 2 baking trays with greaseproof paper and prepare your piping bag. We’ll turn the oven on in a bit.

Place all the ingredients into the mixing bowl, bring the mix together first (so as not to create a dust cloud) before beating well for a minute or 2 to combine all the ingredients together to form a smooth paste. 

Fill your piping bag with half the mixture. Too much in the bag and it’ll be difficult to pipe and you’ll possibly burst the piping bag.  It will also be easier to control the piping.  Dependant on how you want your finished biscuits, either pipe in small swirls around 4 – 5cm wide or larger ‘swishes’ if you want a larger biscuit. If a larger biscuit you should get around 15 biscuits, or c30 smaller ones.

Place the piped biscuits in the fridge to firm up, for around 30 minutes. Now you can pre-heat your oven to Gas 5/190c/170c fan.

Once ready, place the trays in the oven 1 at a time on the bottom shelf and bake for 10 to 15 minutes or until a light golden brown.  Remove from the oven to cool completely before even thinking of removing from the tray.  They will cool quite well without placing onto a cooling rack.

 

Once completely cool (best over night) – the biscuits will firm up – either dip in melted chocolate (c200g of your chosen chocolate) or sandwich with buttercream (50g soft butter/100g icing sugar), jam or curd or just eat them plain.

And I’ve just realised I’ve piped the jam and buttercream the same as the Jammie Dodgers. My last recipe on the blog…. 

Thank you too, to those who continue to support me through the purchase of my cookbook and to those who make a contribution to Cakes by Noah (via the blog), it’s all very much appreciated. X