Viennese Whirls...

I recently decided to 'resurrect' these biscuits. They follow a family recipe of my aunt's and I'd not had them for years.

Forget Mr. Kipling's, and make your own very quickly and very easily. These are seriously simple, but so tasty.

• Preheat oven to 150°C
• In a food processor (or by hand) mix 6 oz butter and 2 oz icing sugar until creamy.
• Blend in 6 oz self raising flour and 2 oz custard powder.
• Spoon into small teaspoon-sized blobs onto a baking sheet and press down with a fork to flatten/pattern (or use a piping bag for a swirl if you'd prefer a true 'whirl').
• Bake for 10-15 minutes until slightly golden.
• Leave to cool for around half an hour.

Filling:
• Beat together butter and icing sugar (about a 1:4 ratio) until creamy.
• Spread generous blob of icing on a biscuit.
• Spoon a little jam onto the centre of that and sandwich another biscuit on top.
• To finish dust with a little icing sugar.

Notes:
• If you dont have custard powder you can also use a mixture of cornflour, vanilla essence and yellow colouring as this what custard powder is made from anyway.
• If the jam is quite sticky, blast it in the microwave for 10 seconds or so to loosen up.

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Soda Bread...

Continuing the slight takeover, I also did not lend my hand to this bread. This recipe is from Rachel Allen and is quick, simple and tatsy too. We tucked into this with a homemade soup, I think it ws leek & potato.

Ingredients:
450g Plain Flour
1 tsp Caster Sugar
1 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
1 tsp Salt
350-425ml Buttermilk/Sour Milk (we used Sour cream, thinned with milk)

• Preheat the oven to 230°C.
• Sift the dry ingredients and make a well in the centre.
• Pour in the sour cream and mix together with your fingertips (don't knead) to form a soft dough.
• Turn out onto a surface, pat into a round and mark a deep cross on top.
• Place on a tray and bake for 15 minutes before turning down the heat to 200°C and cooking for a further 30 minutes.
• Cool on a rack.

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