Nutella Viennese Biscuits
I think there’s something very British about biscuits. We’ve got to the point in our culture where we have very little cuisine we can call our own other than that which we’ve appropriated from other cultures. But for some reason the hearty biscuit with a good cup of tea feels well and truly British. That said, alas, one of my favourite biscuits is the crumbly almighty Viennese biscuit, which guessing by the name is Austrian. I first came across these when I made them at school way back when. I remember them being a pain to pipe as the mixture was so solid, but they tasted divine. The other day I was re-acquainted with these in Sainsburys, this time sandwiched together with some chocolate, and I was reminded of just how good they are!
These are kind of like a more crumbly, lighter shortbread smothered in chocolate and hazelnuts – kinda like the biscuit equivalent of that perfect friend who not only is perfect but is also really nice so they’re impossible to hate. Simply put, these look amazing, taste incredible and have a texture to die for. As long as you don’t over work the mixture they’ll be as crumbly as an archaeological dig through a wet sand pit. They are a little hard to pipe to begin with, but persevere and the mixture will eventually warm up enough to pipe smoothly. If it’s really hard to begin with you might need to use scissors to chop the sticks of dough off the end of the pipping bag! I used Nutella in these as I was looking for something tasty and sticky to act as a ganache substitute in the middle (as I really didn’t want to have to bother with making something else to sandwhich them with) and it worked so so well!
Recipe
Makes 24
Time: 2 hours
Ingredients
- 200g Butter
- 50g Icing sugar
- 2 tsp Vanilla extract
- 200g Plain flour
- 2 tsp Cornflour
- ½ tsp Baking powder
For the filling
- 4 tbsp Nutella
- 100g Dark chocolate
- 50g Chopped hazelnuts
Method
- Pre-heat the oven to 180C. Line two baking trays with baking paper. Take a ruler and draw 24, 6cm lines on each sheet to act as your guides for later. Then turn the paper over so the lines are on the other side.
- Put the butter and icing sugar into a large bowl and beat until pale and creamy. Add the vanilla and whisk again to combine.
- Add the flour, cornflour and baking powder into the mixture until everything’s combined.
- Spoon the dough into a pipping bag with a star shaped nozzle and pipe lines of the dough, using your lines you drew earlier as a guide.
- Put the biscuits into freezer for about 10 minutes to set the shape. Then bake the biscuits for 10-12 minutes until pale golden and slightly crispy. Leave the biscuits to cool.
- Spread or pipe a little of the Nutella over the base of half the biscuits. Then sandwich the covered biscuits with the non-covered biscuits.
- Melt the chocolate in a bowl over a pan of gently simmering water. Dip the edge of the biscuits in the chocolate and then dunk the biscuits in a bowl of chopped hazelnuts. Leave on some grease-proof paper to set and repeat with the rest of the biscuits.
Thanks for reading!
Emma x