GBBO Week 4 - Spanische Windtorte

Sorry that this is a little late, but this creation required time to make! It was all about desserts on the Great British Bake

Off this week, and the first challenge were Crème Brulee (or burnt custard to English folk like me). This challenge no one seemed to do particularly great at, and the danger of having a liquid custard (like Sandy) or scrambled egg (like Paul) put me off trying making my own Crème Brulees for now...

We decided instead to bake the technical challenge – a spanische Windtorte. An Austrian dessert (not Spanish!) made up of layers of french meringue, decorated with swiss meringue and fondant violets. Mary Berry's Windtorte looked amazing, as did some of the bakers! However the filling of double cream and fruit didn't really take our fancy, so we decided to go off-piste and filled the Windtorte with a fruit-filled jelly (sorry Austrians!).

After leaving in the fridge overnight, the jelly set and didn't leak out of the Windtorte :D Better yet it meant that the meringue held better after slicing.

This bake was a lot of effort time-wise however - It took us approximately 5 hours – a lot longer than it did in the tent. As a first attempt ours also didn't look quite as pretty as Mary's...still tasted fabulous though!

It is a recipe that would be perfect as a show-off dessert for a dinner party, so if you have time, have a go and let me know how you get on.

Makes one big Windtorte

Ingredients:

For the French meringue:

8 egg whites
½ tsp cream of tartar
475g caster sugar

For the Swiss meringue:

4 egg whites
250g caster sugar

For the fondant violets:

25g dusky lavender fondant icing
25g dark purple fondant icing
10g yellow fondant icing

For the filling:

1 packet jelly cubes
400g mixed fruit (we used blackberries and strawberries).

Method:

1. First make up the jelly according to the instructions (you'll need to make 500ml of jelly). Start the jelly setting in the fridge – once it has been setting for a few hours, chop the fruit and add to the jelly. Place back in the fridge – if it is setting too much, take out of the fridge and leave it at room temperature (you don't want it to be completely set before it is poured into the final meringue.

2. Make three pieces of greaseproof paper (approximately the size of a baking tray). On two of the pieces, draw two 20cm circles, and on the third, draw one 20cm circle (so you have a total of five circles). Turn the paper upside down (so that the pencil markings are facing down).

3. Preheat your oven to 120c/gas mark ½.

4. For the French meringue, whisk the egg whites in a spotlessly clean bowl until stiff peaks form.

5. Add the sugar, a tablespoon at a time. Keep whisking until you get a thick and glossy meringue (we used an electric whisk, and it took about 10 minutes).

6. You will need 2/3 of the French meringue for the next piping task. Place in a piping bag and to the two of the circles, pipe concentric circles to fill the circle with meringue (this will be the base and the top).

7. For the three other circles pipe just around the rim of the circle (don't fill it in).

8. Bake for 45 minutes (due to space in our oven, we needed to do this in two batches).

9. Whilst baking make the fondant violets. We made these in various ways, but our personal favourite gave the quickest and cutest result. Make 3 small balls each of lavender fondant and purple fondant, and one small ball of yellow fondant. Put the yellow fondant ball in the centre, and place the balls of lavender and purple fondant around the yellow ball. Press down slightly then leave to harden.

10. Once the French meringue has baked, take out of the oven. The original recipe now suggests assembling on a bake-proof serving platter, but we didn't have one of these so instead used the baking tray that already had the base on it. Fill a piping bag with the remaining third of French meringue. Pipe 8 dots around the rim of the base.

11. Gently press the first of the hoops on the base. Pipe 8 dots on the hoop, and add the second hoop, then repeat with the third. Pipe the remaining meringue around the outside of the hoops, and smooth the sides to make it straight (making the meringue look cake-like). Place back in the oven for 45 minutes.

12. Whilst the meringue is baking, make the Swiss meringue. In a bowl (or in our case pan) over simmering water, whisk together the egg white and sugar until the sugar thermometer reads 70C/158F. At this point take off the heat, and use an electric whisk to continuously whisk the mixture until stiff peaks form.

13. Once the meringue has baked and cooled (for about half an hour), pipe stars of swiss meringue (we used a small star nozzle on our piping bag) around the base, middle and top of the meringue. To the top of the meringue, pipe stars all over. Bake for 30 minutes, then leave to cool.