Viennese Whirls

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Electric hand mixer or stand mixer
• •Two baking sheets
• •Baking parchment
• •Large piping bag
• •Closed star piping nozzle (1cm or larger)
• •Wire cooling rack
• •Sieve for the icing sugar

Instructions

1. 1

   Soften the butter properly

   Take the butter out of the fridge well in advance. An hour, two if the kitchen is cold. This is the one step nobody tells you matters and it matters more than anything. The butter needs to be genuinely soft, almost the texture of mayonnaise. If you press a finger into it, it should give without resistance. Cold butter will not pipe. It will defeat you, and your piping bag, and possibly your faith in baking. Be patient.

   If you've forgotten and the butter is still firm, cut it into small cubes and beat it on its own for a few minutes before adding anything else. Don't be tempted by the microwave. Melted butter, even slightly melted, will not give you the texture you're after.
2. 2

   Beat the dough

   Heat the oven to 180C/160C fan and line two baking sheets with parchment. Beat the soft butter and icing sugar together until pale and fluffy. Three or four minutes with electric beaters. It should look almost white and feel light. Add the vanilla. Sift in the flour, cornflour, and salt, and mix on a low speed until it just comes together into a soft, smooth dough. Don't overwork it. The cornflour is doing quiet, important work here, robbing the flour of some of its protein, leaving you with biscuits that crumble rather than snap.

3. 3

   Pipe the whirls

   Spoon the dough into a large piping bag fitted with a star nozzle. A proper closed star, the kind that gives the ridges their definition. Pipe spirals onto the lined trays, starting from the centre and working outwards, about five centimetres across. You're after twenty whirls, give or take, for ten finished biscuits. They won't spread much, but leave a thumb's width between them anyway. If your first one looks rough, scrape it back into the bag and try again. Nobody's watching.

   Trust your nose and your hands. If the dough feels too stiff to push through the bag, it means the butter cooled down. Wrap the piping bag in your hands for a minute and the warmth will bring it back.
4. 4

   Bake until pale gold

   Bake for twelve to fifteen minutes. You're looking for the palest golden colour at the edges and base, with the tops still almost white. These are not biscuits that want to brown. A deeply coloured Viennese whirl has gone too far and lost its tenderness. Let them sit on the trays for ten minutes before lifting them, very gently, onto a wire rack. They are fragile when warm and forgiving once cool.

5. 5

   Make the buttercream

   While the biscuits cool, beat the softened butter on its own until it looks pale and creamy. Add the icing sugar in two or three additions, beating well between each. Don't rush it. The longer you beat, the lighter and fluffier it becomes. Add the vanilla and a splash of milk only if it feels too stiff to pipe. You want something that holds its shape but spreads under gentle pressure. Taste it. It should be sweet but not cloying, with a clean note of vanilla running through.

6. 6

   Sandwich and finish

   Once the biscuits are completely cool, pair them up by size. Spoon the buttercream into a clean piping bag and pipe a generous swirl onto the flat side of half the biscuits. Spoon a small mound of raspberry jam into the centre of each, letting it sit on top of the buttercream rather than spreading it. Sandwich with the remaining biscuits, pressing very gently until the filling reaches the edges. A dusting of icing sugar over the tops if you're feeling formal. Then leave them alone for half an hour to settle.

   Use a jam with proper fruit in it. The cheap stuff is too loose and too sweet, and it will weep into the buttercream within an hour. A good raspberry jam holds its shape and tastes of raspberries, which is the entire point.

Chef Tips

• •The cornflour is not optional and it is not interchangeable with anything else. It's the reason these biscuits crumble in the way they do, melting almost before you've finished chewing. Cut it out and you've made a butter biscuit, which is fine, but it isn't this.
• •Use a proper closed star piping nozzle, the larger the better. A small nozzle will fight you and the ridges will be feeble. A good wide star gives you definition and means you're not pushing dough through a tiny hole until your hands ache.
• •Make these with the best raspberry jam you can find, or better still, one you made yourself in June when the raspberries were at their peak and you put up more than you needed. A small jar of really good jam transforms these from nice biscuits into something quietly splendid.
• •Don't sandwich them too far ahead. The biscuits soften the longer they sit against the buttercream, and after a day they lose some of that crumbling magic. Bake them ahead by all means, but assemble on the day you plan to serve them.

Advance Preparation

• •The unfilled biscuits keep in an airtight tin for up to four days and actually improve after a few hours of resting.
• •The buttercream can be made a day ahead and kept covered at cool room temperature. Beat it briefly to loosen before piping.
• •Sandwiched whirls are best eaten on the day they're assembled, or the day after at the latest. Store in a tin in a cool place, not the fridge, which deadens the butter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 115g)