I have the Great British bake off to thank for my knowledge of a Spanische windtorte.
It was a technical challenge on the show way back in 2015.
Jump to RecipeIt is a cake made entirely of baked meringue, so its like a fancy pavlova.
Rings of meringue are piped and baked and then stacked and covered in more meringue and baked again.
Traditionally it is then decorated with swiss meringue. i did my decorations with the french meringue and baked the whole thing.
Its like a large pavlova Cake with a hole in the centre for the filling, which usually consists of cream and fresh fruit.
Often they have a little meringue lid too.
Its perfect to travel with to family or friends with for the holidays as its hard like a pavlova. You don’t have to worry about smudging any frosting like you would with a cake!.
Then you can fill it when you get there.
Spanische windtorte
The spanische windtorte is a Austrian dessert, that supposedly became popular during the baroque period of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
recipes for it appearing in several 19th century cookbooks from Austria.
Its a bit of a retro dessert, but i thought it had the potential to become a great Christmas show stopper.
I wanted to create a snowy mountain scene and meringue seemed like the perfect thing to accomplish it.
We love to have meringues and pavlova’s at Christmas time.
I made a Christmas tree shaped one last week and then had the idea for this one and had to try it.
Originally i wanted to create a smooth meringue cake and pipe on snow flakes but i then i thought of this.
Since watching the bake off a few years ago i have wanted to make one, but the idea to create a snow scene was inspired by the holiday season.
I decided to fill it with cranberry and raspberry compote and whipped cream,
It looks quite fiddly and complicated but its really quite simple.
I am terrible at piping and frosting cakes so if i can do it so can you!.
It would be so wonderful for Christmas day.
Inspired by the recipe here
spanische windtorte snow cake
baked rings of french meringue are covered in more meringue and baked to look like a cake. I made it into a Christmas pavlova. inspired by this recipe http://thegreatbritishbakeoff.co.uk/spanish-windtorte-technical-challenge-recipe/
Equipment
- stand mixer
- piping bags
- 3 baking trays
- pallet knife
- blue food colouring, green lustre dust
Ingredients
- 8 large egg whites
- 475 grams caster sugar
- 1 tbsp corn flour or 1/2 tsp creme of tartar
Instructions
- Line 3 large baking sheets with baking parchment. Draw 5 circles the same size onto the paper. Preheat the oven to 120C/fan 100C/gas ½. (mine was about 130c)
- tip the egg whites and cream of tartar (if using) into a large spotlessly clean bowl and whisk with an electric mixer on high speed until the whites form stiff peaks. Add the caster sugar, a tablespoon at a time. turn up speed and whisk continuously for about 6 minutes to make a thick, glossy meringue. you can check its ready by rubbing some mixture between your fingers, it should not feel grainy from the sugar and the meringue should not move when the bowl is held upside down.
- Spoon two thirds of the meringue into a piping bag fitted with a 1.5cm plain tube. Pipe a thick ring inside one of the circles on the baking sheet and continue spiralling until the entire circle is filled. so you have one filled meringue for the base of the meringue cake.
- Repeat the process with the three remaining circles, except don’t fill in the circles, so you have 3 hoops of meringue. These create the sides of the meringue shell. Bake for 45 minutes. Remove from the oven and leave to cool. save a small amount of meringue mixture in the bowl to colour blue and Put the rest of the white meringue into two piping bags, one fitted with a star nozzle for the trees.Mix in a little blue colouring to the mixture in the bowl.
- When the meringues are dry, gently slide the base meringue onto heatproof (to 120C) serving plate. pipe 8 blobs of meringue, evenly spaced around the edge of the circle. Place one of the meringue hoops on top and press down very gently to stick the hoop to the base.
- Repeat the process with the other 2 hoops of meringue. Roughly pipe some of the meringue around the sides to disguise the hoops. Using a spatula smooth out the meringue so the sides are smooth and straight and look like a cake.
- add the blue meringue to the top and smooth out so the top and sides are flat, then add some more white mixture at the bottom and smooth out to look like snowy mountains.
- Pipe on some trees and use a fork to create texture. make some lines in the merinuge to define the mountains.
- Bake on the serving plate for 45 minutes. Turn off oven and leave to cool for 30 minutes in the oven with the door ajar.
- To decorate i used some edible green lustre dust dist mixed with a little liquid and painted some lines on the trees. Then i dusted the blue part with some white shimmery lustre dust and painted on some snow. then i stuck some desiccated coconut on.then just before serving i added layers of whipped cream and compote and fresh raspberries in side it.
About how large were your circles, if I might ask? I’m looking at doing this for my daughter’s birthday party this weekend and trying to gauge the size of this/if I want to go a little bigger.
Yours turned out so beautifully. Thanks for posting!
i didn’t measure them i just made the largest i could fit onto three trays. i drew around a pudding basin, i would suggest the largest size you can fit on three baking tray. if you follow the link to the bake off’s page in the text at the top they suggest a size. xx
Omg! It looks beautiful! I wish I can make it next week!It’s really attractive food!
Thank you!
thank you so much x
That looks lovely!!! I bet the kids loved it! I love the snow men, they look fab, I have never made meringue before they scare me!! LOL!! xxx
thank you it was so fun to make x