How to make Viennese Whirls

How to make Viennese Whirls- top tips on how to get Viennese Whirl biscuits right when you make them at home. 

If you have watched the Great British Bake Off in the past, you'll have seen the group of bakers tackling Viennese Whirls with mixed results. I watched them myself, thinking that it looked pretty difficult. Actually, they are fairly easy if you tackle them with confidence! In this post, I am going to show you how I got on with making Viennese Whirls using a slightly adapted recipe from The Hairy Bikers, and give you some top tips for trying it yourself. So, if you are wondering how to make Viennese Whirls and want to have a go, keep reading!

Viennese Whirls are an entirely British creation that get their name from being inspired by Austrian pastries. They are biscuits, very similar to shortbread but with a much lighter texture. What makes them distinctive is the fact that they are piped biscuits in a swirl pattern, which are then filled with buttercream and jam. Usually the jam is strawberry, but you can use whatever your favourite  is. I made half with strawberry and half with blackcurrant. Unlike other biscuit recipes, Viennese Whirls are made with corn flour and icing sugar, and, if done well, they should almost melt in your mouth.

There was a bit of trial and error involved when I made these Viennese Whirls. The trickiest parts of the process are the piping of the biscuit dough and then putting the filling inside. The rest really isn't a problem. My first tip would be that you need to get your butter out several hours before starting as, ideally, you want it as soft as possible.

I  managed to make my biscuits fairly uniform when I was making them, with a few rogue ones. Luckily, even the slightly misshapen ones had matching partners, so they still looked good when they were put together! 

For piping the icing, I used a small star icing nozzle, so I would have better control over the quantity going onto the biscuit, and I chilled the buttercream to make the biscuits more stable when assembled. I also found that less is more when it comes to the jam, and that it also benefited from being chilled.

For top tips on how to make your own Viennese Whirls, follow the recipe below.

For the Original recipe from the Hairy Bikers go to the BBC Food website: Hairy Bikers' Viennese Whirls Recipe
Tools for making Viennese Whirls

icing bag
large star icing nozzle
small star icing nozzle
2 mixing bowls
cookie sheet
greaseproof paper

Ingredients
(makes 16-18 biscuits)

125g unsalted butter, softened well
25g icing sugar
125g plain flour
25 g cornflour
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
5 tbsp strawberry jam, chilled

For the icing
50g unsalted butter, softened
100g icing sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Method

1.Pre-heat the oven to 190 (170 fan, gas mark 4)  Put all the biscuit ingredients into a mixing bowl and use an electric mixer to blend them together. At first, it will go breadcrumb like, then it will suddenly bind into a light fluffy mixture. Scrape any mixture off the beaters and the side of the bowl.
2. Spoon the mixture into a piping bag with a large star nozzle attached. Put the spoon in as far as you can, so the mixture is as close to the nozzle as possible. Twist and then squeeze the piping bag to move the mixture as far down as you can.
3. Line a cookie sheet with greaseproof paper, or alternatively use a large baking tray.
4. To pipe the biscuits onto the greaseproof paper, move the nozzle in a close circle motion to create a swirl. It doesn't need to be large; one full swirl will be perfect, about 5cm across. If, as you end the swirl, a little of it is sticking out, or up, gently tuck  it in so it's touching the rest of the swirl. The biscuits will spread a little when cooking, so leave a good 2-3 cm between them.
5. Pop them in the oven for 12-15 mins.They will be golden when ready.
6. Take them out of the oven and leave to cool for 3-4  minutes. Don't be tempted to move them sooner or they will crumble. Then gently remove them (with dry hands) and place them flat side down on a cooling rack.
7. Pipe the rest of the mixture and pop into the oven.
8. While the biscuits are cooling, make the buttercream by blending the icing sugar, butter and vanilla essence together until smooth.  Spoon it into an icing bag with a small star nozzle attached, squeeze the icing down and then put the icing bag in the fridge to set a little.
9. When all the biscuits are cooled, use a teaspoons to spoon a small amount of jam onto half of them.
10. Get the icing bag out of the fridge and swirl icing onto the remaining biscuit halves.
11. Gently press the halves together to make sandwiches. If you haven't managed to make them uniform in shape and size, try to match them up in pairs as much as you can!