Raspberry and White Chocolate 'Blondies'

I'd never heard of a 'blondie' before, but after a bit of research I found out they are like a white chocolate or vanilla version of brownies. I love brownies but I don't often do much chocolate baking, although I love chocolate I never feel like baking with it! So I thought these sounded perfect for me. Especially with my favourite combination of raspberry and white chocolate. I'm just obsessed with raspberries at the moment! These are definitely worth a try, they have a texture similar to brownies and it's hard to describe what they taste like - not really like cake at all, but delicious, you'll have to try them to find out!

 Recipe (from here)

• 115g baking margarine / butter
• 115g caster sugar
• 2 medium eggs
• 125g plain flour
• 200g white chocolate, chopped
• 115g fresh raspberries, washed

Firstly, preheat the oven to 190'C or 170'C fan, and grease a square tin.

Melt the butter with 100g of the white chocolate, I used a microwave but kept a good eye on it. 

Beat together the eggs with the sugar for about 5 minutes until its thick and pale.

Mix the flour gently into the egg mixture, and then mix in the melted white chocolate mixture.

Stir in 50g of the white chocolate and half of the raspberries.

Pour into the tin, and then place the remaining chocolate and raspberries on top. Bake for about 30 minutes until golden brown on top and when a skewer comes out clean. 

I added a few extra raspberries on top when they had come out of the oven, you can also sprinkle with icing sugar (which I forgot to do - oops!).

Enjoy!  

Liddie x

Viennese Whirls

I've made Viennese Whirls a couple of times before but thought it was about time I added the recipe. I've finally finished University (until I start my masters degree in September.. I must be crazy!) so I now have more time for baking and updating my blog, which I'm excited about! Home-made Viennese whirls are just the best, they taste so much better than shop brought. The combination of the crumbly biscuit and the jam with the sweetness of the butter cream is just amazing. They are a bit more time consuming than other biscuits, but worth it for both the taste and how pretty they look! 

Recipe

For the biscuits:

• 250g salted butter
• 50g icing sugar
• 250g plain flour
• 50g cornflour

For the filling

 • 100g butter
• 200g icing sugar
• ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
• 100g raspberry jam

To begin with, preheat the oven to 170°C. Mix together all of the ingredients for the biscuit until it resembles a soft dough. It tends to be quite tough to pipe, so a couple of teaspoons of milk and/or 10-20 seconds in the microwave can help loosen it up.

Line a tray with baking paper and draw outlines of circles. You don't have to do this, but it makes them extra perfect and fit together nicely. I found I got about 15 biscuits from this recipe (but large ones so you can get more if you make them smaller). 

Transfer the mixer to a piping bag with a star nozzle, and start piping onto the circles. It's  a bit of a work out but definitely worth it in the end! 

Bake them in the oven for about 15 minutes until they are slightly golden. Let them cool down and firm up as they will be very soft. When they harden up, they are still very crumbly biscuits so take care. Whilst you are waiting, make the buttercream by whisking together the butter with the icing sugar. Spread the jam onto the cool biscuits and pipe the buttercream on top in a circle. 

Hope you enjoy the recipe!


Liddie x