This week is UK Coffee Week so I am concentrating on baking with coffee in the recipes. Today I am going to be making some Coffee Viennese Whirls flavoured with coffee and sandwiched together with coffee buttercream. I know the children will hate them but the husband will love them. I am not a great fan of coffee. I drink it but it has to be instant coffee and not too strong. I am a tea drinker at heart.
For the market I would often make coffee and walnut cakes – a great combination which proved to be very popular with my customers. When I had a new idea to try on the public I would try samples on them. This involved slicing up bits of the products into mouth sized pieces and handing them out to people as they walked past the stall. I did find that some people would try and then buy the product but you would also get the “grazers”. These people would just eat for the sake of eating and not buy anything. I did not do this very often as I hated the fact people would just come to eat at my stall. I tended to stick to the “gift of the gab” as it were to sell the new idea to the people who I thought were interested as word of mouth is sometimes the only way to go.
When I bake using coffee I usually use coffee granules dissolved in boiled water. Sometimes I have used coffee essence in the past but it not a very good replacement for real coffee. I found that if I used coffee essence in the buttercream it would sometimes curdle and when used on the cake it would separate. I stick to coffee granules and boiled water now and achieve good results every time.
The artificial essences are good but not that good and I feel that they do not replace the real flavour for example nothing can beat real lemon zest and juice in a cake batter. I have found that if you use an essence with a colour that the resultant cake is dense and quite solid in texture and it spoils the bake. I realised this when I made a cake for my daughter’s birthday and she wanted a pink, strawberry flavoured sponge. The sponge was horrible and I was ashamed to say I had made it. I think that the real thing cannot be replaced with artificial flavours and try to avoid them at all cost.
This week will be all about coffee. How much I bake depends on my son who is not very well at the moment. If all goes well and he starts to get better I will be making some coffee flavoured Éclairs as I dreamt about these last night. Strange thing to dream about I know but they came into my head and the idea is still there now so I will have to bake them – maybe an Easter weekend treat for the family. I am going to try coffee in my brownies and see how it affects the flavour as it seems to be the in thing at the moment – the coffee intensifies the chocolate flavour but I think my brownies are chocolatey enough.
[lt_recipe name=”Coconut Slice” servings=”12″ prep_time=”20M” cook_time=”1H” total_time=”1H20M” difficulty=”Intermediate” print=”yes” summary=”Nutritionally, one slice contains 338 calories, 21.9g total fat (28% daily total fat), 34.3g total carbohydrate (12% daily total carbohydrate), 3.5g fibre (13% daily fibre) (based on a 2000 calorie diet).” image=”https://www.love-to-bake.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/coconut3.jpeg” ingredients=”For the shortbread:;6oz plain flour;2oz caster sugar;125g butter;For the filling:;4tbsp. black cherry jam;For the coconut topping:;5oz caster sugar;8oz desiccated coconut;3 eggs;” ]For the shortbread:;Preheat the oven to gas 4.;Line a baking tray.;Weigh out the ingredients into a bowl and rub together till a dough is formed.;Transfer to the tray and flatten down.;Bake for 20-30 minutes.;Cover the surface of the shortbread with the jam.;For the coconut topping:;In a bowl whisk the sugar and eggs together until light and fluffy.;Mix in the coconut and transfer to the tray.;Make sure to cover the jam and flatten to topping down.;Bake for 20 – 30 minutes till golden brown.;Slice into pieces.;[/lt_recipe]
At the weekend I made some brownies, really gooey cookies and some Coconut Slice (for the husband). The coconut slice was a combination of my shortbread recipe and a coconut haystacks recipe I have done in the past for the stall. I used my favourite jam in the recipe as I thought I would eat them too if black cherry jam was included. I tried one on Saturday but I haven’t had one since. It is not that I don’t like them but more that I am watching what I eat and I don’t actually eat a lot of sweet things. This is probably because I bake so much and don’t fancy eating the baked product unlike the rest of the family who just eat constantly. I am sharing my coconut slice recipe as I am quite pleased with the results. In fact I am going to have a piece soon with a cup of tea/coffee. 🙂
In conclusion, the Coffee Viennese Whirls are baked and have been taste tested by myself and my daughter. I will be adding this recipe on my blog. They are a hit. Perfectly formed and when it came to filling them with the buttercream I decided to add walnuts to the cream to give a different flavour and texture to the cookie.
Another idea would be to make the standard recipe but to use coffee buttercream as the filling. I think it is the buttercream which gives the most flavour to the cookie as not too much coffee can be added to the dough. There are lots of other flavours which can be used when making these little melt-in-the-mouth morsels of tastiness some of which I will be adding to my third recipe book in the summer. Roll on the summer!!
These cookies are so easy to make and bake very quickly. The dough is very easy to handle and they look very delicate and dainty. I will definitely be baking these again in the future.