Venessa Whirl Mince Pies
If you fancy a mince pie with a difference then I recommend these gorgeous Viennese Whirl Mince Pies! Made with a flavoursome flaky walnut and orange pastry, a rich mincemeat filling and a light and crumbly buttery biscuit Viennese Whirl topping.
Calories:
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Here's what you'll need...
- Food processor with blade fitted
- Stand or hand mixer with beaters fitted
- Mince pie tin or 12 hole muffin tin
- 9cm pastry cutter
- Piping bag with large sized star nozzle fitted such as 1M
Ingredients you'll need...
Walnut and Orange Pastry - this will make enough pastry for 24 mince pies
- 50 g Walnut haves
- 250 g Plain flour
- ¼ teaspoon Fine salt
- 125 g Unsalted butter cold and cubed (if it warms up whilst being cubed then refrigerate for 10 minutes)
- 50 g Caster sugar
- 1 Egg yolk
- Zest of an orange
- 2-3 tablespoon Fresh orange juice
Mincemeat filling
- Either use my Walnut and Whisky Mincemeat or a 411 gram jar of good quality mincemeat. If you using a jar of mincemeat add a tablespoons of brandy, whisky or almond liqueur. You can also add 30 grams of dried cranberries and 30 grams of chopped walnuts or almonds.
Viennese Whirl
- 150 g Unsalted butter must be really soft
- 150 g Self Raising flour
- 60 g Icing sugar
- 40 g Cornflour
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon Orange zest
Here's what we do...
Walnut and Orange Pastry
- Grind the walnuts in a good processor or Nutribullet until powder like.
- Mix together your flour, salt and ground walnuts. You can do this in your food processor, however to be sure it mixes thoroughly I usually do this in a separate bowl and then tip into the food processor.
- Dot over the cold cubed butter and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. Make sure all of the dry mixture at the base of the food processor bowl is mixed in.
- Mix in your caster sugar (again you may find it easier to tip out into a separate bowl to be sure everything mixes in equally).
- Add your egg yolk, orange zest and cold orange juice.
- Pulse again until the pastry starts to form some large clumps, there will still be some loose mixture in the base of the bowl once this starts to happen.
- Tip your pastry out onto a clean work surface and pull it together into a ball, but do not knead it.
- Flatten the pastry to about an inch and a half in depth, cover in clingfilm and then refrigerate for 30 minutes. Note: you will need about half of this pastry for your mince pies, the rest can be used for another batch or frozen.
- Meanwhile make your Viennese Whirl topping.
Viennese Whirl Topping
- Add your butter your stand mixer with the beaters fitted, or fit the beaters to your hand mixer.
- Beat your butter to be sure it is soft enough, when ready it should stick to sides of the bowl and not around the beaters.
- Add your sifted icing sugar and beat until full incorporated, scraping your bowl down as you go to be sure everything mixes in.
- Beat in your vanilla extract and orange zest.
- Sift together your flour and cornflour and then add to your beaten butter mixture.
- Beat for about 3-4 minutes on a medium setting, continually wiping your bowl down to be sure all of the mixture from the sides and base of the bowl is incorporated. Once ready the mixture should be soft and pale yellow. It will also be quite stiff and dough like.
- Add to your piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle. Press the dough down into the nozzle squeezing out any air bubbles and then tie off the top of the piping bag to secure the dough.
Compiling your Viennese Mince Pies.
- Heat your oven to 170°C Fan/190°C/Gas Mark 5/375°F.
- Using some additional butter, grease your mince pie or muffin tin.
- Lightly flour your work surface and then roll out your pastry to a depth of about 3mm. As the pastry is very soft you will find you keep needing to re-flouring your work surface and rolling pin regularly to stop it from sticking.
- Cut out 12 circles and place in the tin, pushing down gently into the base.
- Fill with 1-2 teaspoons of your mincemeat, to just below the edge of the pastry case.
- Take your piping bag and pipe a swirl of Viennese Whirl mixture over the top of each mince pie. Either start in the middle and pipe a round swirl or start at the outside and finish in the middle.
- Refrigerate again for 30 minutes, you need the Viennese Whirls to be cold and hard before baking, otherwise the swirl will lose its definition due to high butter content.
- Bake in the centre of your oven for 20 minutes, until the Viennese Whirl is lightly browned and the edges of the pastry case are nice and brown.
- Leave to cool in the tin for about 15 minutes and then remove to a cooling rack.
- Once cool sift over some extra icing sugar to decorate.
Additional content - mincemeat recipe
- For my Walnut and Whisky Mincement go to Walnut and Whisky MincemeatOr for a quick do-it-yourself mincemeat mix together all of the following:250 grams of mixed dried fruit½ a cooking apple, cored and chopped into small pies (skin left on)30 grams of ready to eat apricots, chopped 30 grams of ready to eat prunes, chopped30 grams of walnut halves, chopped 30 grams of almonds (preferably skin on) chopped }30 grams of dried cranberries100 grams of vegetable suet2 teaspoons of mixed spice½ teaspoon of grated whole nutmeg120 grams dark brown sugarZest of 1 orangeZest of 1 lemon4 tablespoons of either dark spiced rum, brandy, whisky, or almond liqueur4 tablespoons of fresh orange juice.Once mixed set aside with a clean tea-towel over the top and then store in sterilised jars. See Sterilising Glass Jars
Supporting Notes
For my Walnut and Whisky Mincement go to Walnut and Whisky Mincemeat
Make Your own Notes on this Recipe here...
