My take on a Viennese Whirl Biscuits
Viennese whirls are a British biscuit consisting of soft shortbread biscuits piped into a whirl shape. The most common UK version was popularised by Mr. Kipling, consisting of two biscuits sandwiched with buttercream and jam. In this sense, they resemble the older Empire biscuit.
Don’t worry if you are not an expert at piping, they’ll still look brilliant once they are baked.
Ingredients
- 250g/ 9oz very soft butter
- 50g/2oz icing sugar, plus extra to decorate
- 250g/9oz plain flour
- 50g/2oz cornflour
Filling
- 100g/31/2 oz soft butter
- 200g/7oz icing sugar, plus 1/2 tsp for dusting
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
- 75g/3oz raspberry jam
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 190°C/170°C (Fan)/Gas 5. Line a baking sheet with baking paper.
- Put the butter, icing sugar, plain flour, cornflour, and vanilla extract in a food processor and blend until smooth. You may need to scrape down the mixture a couple of times with a rubber spatula.
- Spoon the dough into a piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle. Pipe 2 1/2″ rosettes of the dough, spacing well apart.
- For the filling, put the butter in a bowl and sift the icing sugar on top. Add the vanilla and beat with a wooden spoon or an electric whisk until very light and smooth. Spoon into a clean piping bag fitted with a large star nozzle. Put the jam in a bowl and stir until smooth.
- Bake in the centre of the oven for 13-15 minutes or until pale golden brown and firm. Cool on the baking tray for 5 minutes then transfer to a cooling rack. Repeat with the remaining dough to make 32 biscuits.
- Spoon a little jam onto the flat side of 16 of the biscuits and place jam-side up on the cooling rack. Pipe the buttercream onto the remaining biscuits and sandwich with the jam. Put on a serving plate and dust with sifted icing sugar. Serve.
