Hermine's strawberries and cream biscuits
What better way to treat ourselves than with a bit of baking! With a twist on a classic recipe, Bake Off semi-finalist Hermine shares her strawberries and cream palet breton biscuits!
Strawberries & cream palet breton biscuits
Makes 16 biscuits
Prep 20 minutes, plus chilling time
Cook 25 minutes
Ingredients
For the biscuits
185g butter, room temperature
110g icing sugar
2 small egg yolks
55g ground almonds
160g plain flour
1 tsp vanilla extract
½ tsp salt
For the decoration
1 vanilla pod
40g icing sugar
300ml double cream
150g small strawberries
20g shelled pistachio nuts, chopped
Equipment
Muffin tin
Method
1. Biscuit batter: Cream the butter and the icing sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the egg yolks until combined and smooth. Stir in the ground almonds, flour, vanilla extract and the salt. Mix well until combined. Pour into a cling film sheet and roll into a 5cm thick, 23 cm long log. Place the log in the fridge until the butter firms up (the freezer is a faster alternative).
2. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 180C/160C fan/Gas 4.
3. Slice 16 x 1.27cm discs and place them into greased muffin tins. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown. Enjoy cold as they are or move on to step 4 to decorate with cream and strawberries.
4. Chantilly cream: Use a sharp knife to split the vanilla pod down the centre. Remove the seeds and place them into a large bowl. Add the icing sugar and the double cream. Whip with an electric mixer until soft peak stage (do not overmix). Place the mixture in a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle.
5. Pull the green hulls out of the strawberries and slice each strawberry into eighths.
6. Pipe the Chantilly cream in the middle of each biscuit. Arrange the strawberry slices around the cream. Sprinkle the chopped pistachio nuts over the centre of each.