My classic Viennese whirls recipe is the most viewed recipe on my blog of all time. Crazy! Don’t get me wrong, I love a good Viennese whirl but even I’m surprised at how well its done. So with that in mind, I thought I’d make a variation for all those whirl lovers. And ta dahh, mint chocolate Viennese whirls were born.
Nothing ground breaking or controversial but mint chocolate is one of my absolute favourite flavour combos. My go-to ice cream when I was a child was always mint-choc chip. So I thought this would be a crowd pleaser!
The secret to Viennese whirls is the consistency of your dough. Too thick and it’ll be claggy and really hard to pipe out, but too thin and the whirls will crumble. The addition of cocoa powder in these whirls makes the dough a lot thicker, so I’ve upped the milk quantity, but I would also trust your own judgement. If you’ve used all the milk I’ve specified in the recipe and it still feels really thick, definitely add more – a little at a time. Its not worth the pain of trying to pipe beautiful swirls with impossibly thick batter.
The tricky thing about making chocolate biscuits is that its a lottt harder to tell if they’re baked or not. So rather than going by colour you’ll need to go on texture instead. You want the biscuits to be firm to the touch, and then leave them to cool on the baking tray.
Because Viennese whirls are quite chunky biscuits make sure you whip the buttercream for at least 5 minutes as I’ve said in the recipe. Using a classic buttercream recipe, though delicious, can be quite thick if not whipped properly. You want to incorporate lots of air so its light, fluffy and delicious! Also a note on peppermint flavouring. Its extremely potent! I only use 1/4tsp. Do NOT use more than that. I promise you it will taste like toothpaste otherwise.
Icing sugar dusting is optional, but it just makes everything look so much prettier! I really hope you like this mint chocolate version as much as I did!
On with the recipe!
Mint Chocolate Viennese Whirls
Ingredients
Biscuits
- 250 g unsalted butter room temperature
- 50 g icing sugar
- 50 g cocoa powder
- 200 g plain flour
- 50 g cornflour
- 3 1/2 tsp whole milk
Buttercream
- 100 g unsalted butter room temperature
- 200 g icing sugar
- 1/4 tsp peppermint extract
- 1 pinch of salt
Instructions
- For the biscuits: Preheat your oven to 190C/Fan 170C and line a large baking tray with baking paper that you’ve marked out 14 circles on for guidance. I draw round a 6mm cookie cutter.
- Beat together the butter, sugar, cocoa powder, plain flour and cornflour together until you get a smooth paste. You can also do this in a food processor. Then add the milk a little at a time until you reach a smooth piping consistency – you may need more milk than is specified. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle, and pipe circles onto the baking paper starting from the outside and working your way in.
- Bake the biscuits in the oven for 12-15 minutes until they are firm. Then leave them to cool on the baking tray.
- For the buttercream: Using an electric whisk beat the butter for 5 minutes until very pale and light in texture. Then add in the icing sugar (you may want to mix this lightly by hand at first to avoid an icing sugar cloud) and the peppermint extract and beat until combined.
- Spoon the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle and pipe onto 7 of the biscuits. Then sandwich with the remaining 7 biscuits to create the Viennese whirls.