Let it whip
Walnut whippy
Here we go, in at number 26.
It’s been all about the workshop, I went up to Nottingham to lead a wholegrain pastry workshop at the Mill Coop which was one of their crowdfunder rewards. It was so lovely to work with the freshly milled flour and try out the new kitchen space that’s coming together wonderfully and will be the site of many more workshops to come. Then this past weekend I did a cake decorating workshop at Leilas, some delightful students who all created such different styled and wonderful looking cakes. Sadly I cannot fit in any more workshops this year, but they will be back again in February for all things citrus!
I have a bake sale coming up though, on Sunday 16th November in the morning I will be at the charming Ancestral wine bar in Forest Hill selling bakes. I’m working on my menu for this but expect a mix of sweet and savoury GASP(but maybe not loads of savoury)!!!
This week we’ll be looking at some variations on a theme, basically chocolate and marshmallow (type substances.) I really enjoyed making my version of a mini walnut whip for the Arnold Circus plant sale, so would like to share it with you.
The Walnut Whip was launched in 1910 by Duncans of Edinburgh who later got renamed Rowntree’s who are owned by Nestle. The original was a milk chocolate shell filled with airy vanilla fondant (not entirely sure what this is, but has definite marshmallow qualities) and the walnut which started off hidden inside the shell rather than sitting jauntily on top. I think as an item it just feels whimsical, I took some to my lovely accountant and she was immediately filled with joy and exclaimed in her Scottish accent “What a treat. My mother used to buy us one every Sunday!” The whip has been through some variations and some different flavours chucked in, even one without any walnut at all which feels wrong. It is claimed that a walnut whip is eaten in the UK every 2 seconds which seems mental!
There seem to be many iterations of marshmallow type substances and chocolate, a real classic of course being the Tunnocks tea cake. Infamous Scottish delight with shortbread base, and pleasingly round dome of Italian meringue (marshmallow without the gelatine) and covered in chocccy. These came later than the whip appearing in 1956 with their iconic packaging. The Aussie version is called a Royal and has an added layer of jam. Then the Danish version called Flødeboller, which translates to cream bun as they were originally cream filled.
The Wagon Wheel popped up in 1948, when it seemed there was a slight Western craze going on. This is marshmallow sandwiched between 2 biscuits and covered in chocolate similar to an American Moon Pie. I remember when I was probably around 7 being very jealous of quite a few of the kids at school getting Wagon Wheels in their lunchboxes which always looked far more exciting than my Penguin.
I have been working on the recipe for a while and have previously made Tea cakes, using a round dome mould which looked great but I could only make six at a time. I also made a hazelnut Wagon Wheel so going on to a Walnut whip was simple. The main excitement for me was creating the brown sugar marshmallow, I am of course very keen on all brown ingredients and I find white white marshmallow just tastes like a refined sugar toothache. Also in basically all the marshmallow recipes I looked at they used liquid glucose, now I feel very suspect of liquid glucose as it doesn’t seem very natural and I’m not really sure what on earth it is apart from being sweeeeeet and there supposedly to stabilise your sugar. I just didn’t use it and had zero issues so decided it was surplus to requirement. My whip is brown sugar marshmallow piped on to a rye and walnut biscuit and covered in dark chocolate topped with walnut. This recipe is a project, it’s not a quick one to whip up and definitely got some more advanced skills but good if you have a thermometer and fancy a challenge.
The tiresome bit for me is the chocolate tempering, I’ve never been very good at it, I have done it quite efficiently in a microwave before but I do not own a microwave. I know there are specific temperatures you have to take it up to then down then up like the Grand old Duke of York! But I temper by eye which is how I was taught at Spring by Sarah Johnson. To temper basically means that you get a nice firm set and shiny finish with no blooming which would sort of ruin the look of the Whips. It’s time consuming so I usually do it sitting down in front of the telly, constantly stirring my chocolate but worth it for the nice end result.
