We’re obsessive about Gemma Stafford’s tackle the standard Viennese whirl. The recipe, Easiest Buttery Viennese Fingers, is featured in her cookbook, Larger Bolder Baking: A Fearless Method to Baking Anytime, Anyplace. Right here, we reimagine the British teatime favourite as holiday-ready sandwich cookies filled with heat winter spice. We added mulling spices for a contact of heat and crammed these wintry sammies with candy, refined Cherry-Port Buttercream. Go to our From the Pantry: Mulling Spices article for the lowdown on how mulling spices can elevate your baked items.
Viennese Sandwich Cookies
Makes about 18 sandwich cookies
- 2 cups (454 grams) unsalted butter, softened
- ⅔ cup (80 grams) confectioners’ sugar
- 2 tablespoons (16 grams) packed orange zest
- 1½ teaspoons (3 grams) floor cinnamon
- 1½ teaspoons (3 grams) floor ginger
- 1½ teaspoons (3 grams) floor cloves
- 1 teaspoon (3 grams) kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon (2 grams) floor nutmeg
- 1 teaspoon (2 grams) floor allspice
- ½ teaspoon (1 gram) floor black pepper
- 3⅓ cups (417 grams) all-purpose flour
- 6 tablespoons (48 grams) cornstarch
- Cherry-Port Buttercream (recipe follows)
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Preheat oven to 350°F (180°C). Utilizing a everlasting marker, draw 36 (4×1-inch) rectangles, evenly spaced, on 3 sheets of parchment paper (12 per parchment). Flip parchment over, and place on 3 baking sheets.
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Within the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter, confectioners’ sugar, orange zest, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, nutmeg, allspice, and pepper at medium velocity till nicely mixed and creamy, 2 to three minutes, stopping to scrape sides of bowl.
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In a medium bowl, sift collectively flour and cornstarch. With mixer on low velocity, regularly add flour combination to butter combination, beating till mixed.
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Place about 1 cup (247 grams) dough right into a piping bag fitted with a medium open star tip (Wilton 4B); pipe small dots of batter below parchment to stick to baking sheets. Utilizing drawn rectangles as guides, pipe batter in a zigzag sample. (Dough will take some effort to pipe.) Repeat with remaining dough. Refrigerate for quarter-hour.
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Bake till evenly golden and agency to the contact, about 14 minutes, rotating pans midway by way of baking. Let cool on pans for five minutes. Fastidiously take away from pans, and let cool utterly on wire racks.
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Spoon Cherry-Port Buttercream into a big piping bag fitted with a medium open star tip (Wilton 4B); pipe about 2 tablespoons (30 grams) buttercream onto flat facet of half of cookies. Place remaining cookies, flat facet down, on prime of buttercream. Serve instantly.
Cherry-Port Buttercream
Makes about 2⅔ cups
- ¾ cup (170 grams) ruby port
- ¼ cup (80 grams) cherry preserves
- 1 cup (227 grams) unsalted butter, softened
- ½ teaspoon (2 grams) vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- 4 cups (480 grams) confectioners’ sugar
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In a small saucepan, carry port and preserves to a boil over medium-high warmth. Scale back warmth to medium; prepare dinner, stirring sometimes, till combination reduces to ¼ cup, 15 to twenty minutes. Pressure combination by way of a fine-mesh sieve, urgent out as a lot liquid as doable; discard solids. Let cool utterly.
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Within the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat butter at medium velocity till clean and creamy, 1 to 2 minutes. Beat in vanilla and salt. With mixer on low velocity, regularly add confectioners’ sugar till mixed. Add 2 tablespoons (about 34 grams) cooled port combination; beat at medium velocity till fluffy and nicely mixed, 1 to 2 minutes, stopping to scrape sides of bowl. Use instantly.
