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Viennese Whirls, another classic in British baking! This light, buttery biscuit sandwiched between a layer of jam and raspberry is an absolute classic that comes in many flavour variations! The classic Viennese Whirl is made with a crumbly vanilla biscuit and sandwiched with raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream. Unlike other biscuits, the mix for these Viennese Whirls isn´t rolled and cut out, but instead, is filled into a piping bag and piped into swirls/whirls (hence the name…).
This type of biscuit dough is also used in a German type of Christmas biscuit known as “Spritzgebäck”, which literally translates to “piped biscuits”. The biscuits are often piped into squiggly lines or S-shapes and then half-dipped in dark chocolate! You can find a recipe for those here.
How do you make Viennese Whirls? Tips and Tricks
The first thing you want to consider when making Viennese Whirls is whether you are up for the additional challenge of making your own jam! It´s very easy to make a quick raspberry jam (see recipe instructions below) but you can of course opt to use a few tablespoons of shop-bought jam instead!
As the mixture for Viennese Whirls is piped, you need to make sure that the butter is quite soft when making the biscuit dough. Otherwise the mixture will be too hard, making it difficult to pipe. If you think your mixture is too thick/stiff you can first add a little more milk to the biscuit dough to slacken it down a bit. Also, once you have transferred the biscuit dough to the piping bag, you can always try to warm the dough with your hands for a few minutes to make it more pipeable.
A soft, pipeable mix, however, means that the butter will melt even quicker when the biscuits hit the oven, causing your biscuits to spread. To help keep the biscuits keep their shape it is therefore important to chill the biscuits in the fridge for at least 15-20 minutes (you can do this while the oven preheats) before baking!
The same goes for the buttercream icing, make sure your butter is at room temperature and you beat it well before adding the icing sugar. Otherwise the buttercream will be extremely difficult to pipe! For more tips and tricks, check out my baking basics post on How To Make Buttercream (normal, dairy-free, vegan).
A few Suggestions for Recipe Alterations
Whilst the recipe below makes Viennese Whirls in the most traditional sense, there are loads of ways you can change up this recipe.
For example, why not use a different type of jam (e.g. strawberry, cherry, mixed berry, etc.) or add a different type of flavouring to your buttercream icing?! You could also replace a bit of the flour in this recipe with cocoa powder to make chocolate biscuits. Those would go really well with a cherry jam filling or with an orange-flavoured buttercream (I do like a bit of chocolate-orange!).
You could also go for dipping half of the biscuit in some melted dark chocolate, like I do in this “German version” of the Viennese Whirl here.
Finally, if you are not the greatest fan of buttercream, why not just leave it out? I personally find that buttercream can be quite sickly, but love the combination of jam and biscuit! So, I tend to leave the buttercream out of some of the biscuits… Then my flatmate (who loves the buttercream filling) can have the “real” Viennese Whirls, and I can have the “fake” ones with no/less buttercream, haha…
More Biscuit Recipes
Ah, don´t we all love a good biscuit to dunk into a nice hot cup of tea?! I have loads of biscuit recipes on my blog, so why not check out some of my other recipes? I have listed some of my favourites below:
- Ginger Nut Biscuits | Copycat Recipe | British Baking Classic
- Traditional Scottish Shortbread
- Chocolate and Orange “Crescents”
- Gingerbread Men
- Wagon Wheels Biscuits | British Baking Classic
- German “Spritzgebäck”
- Best-ever Chocolate Chip Cookies
- “Haselnussbrot” – German Hazelnut and Chocolate Biscuits
- Salted Peanut and Apricot Florentines
- Chocolate Digestive Biscuits | British Baking Classic
Viennese Whirls – British Baking Classic
Recipe
Ingredients (makes 18-20 biscuits):
FOR THE JAM:
- 100g fresh or frozen raspberries
- 25g jam sugar
- OR 5 tbsp shop-bought raspberry jam
FOR THE BISCUIT DOUGH:
- 250g unsalted butter, softened
- 100g icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 250g plain flour
- 30g cornflour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- Pinch of salt
- 1 tbsp milk, maybe a little more
FOR THE BUTTERCREAM ICING:
- 75g unsalted butter, at room temperature
- 1 tsp vanilla extract/vanilla bean paste
- 175g icing sugar, sifted (plus a little extra for dusting)
YOU WILL ALSO NEED:
- Hand-held or free-standing electric mixer
- 2 large piping bags
- Star-shaped nozzle
- 2-3 large baking trays
Method:
- If you are making your own jam, use a potato masher to crush the raspberries in a small saucepan. Add the jam sugar and heat gently until the sugar has dissolved. Turn up the heat and boil the jam for 5-8 minutes until thickened. Pour into a shallow container and leave to cool.
- To make the biscuits, put the softened butter into a large mixing bowl and beat for 2-3 minutes until pale and fluffy. Add the icing sugar and vanilla extract and beat for a few minutes more until smooth.
- Sift in the flour, cornflour, baking powder and salt and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined. Then beat in a tablespoon of milk. If you think the mixture is far too stiff to pipe, you may want to add another tablespoon or two of milk, beating well between each tiny addition to make the dough smoother and easier to pipe (don´t add too much milk though. If it is still too stiff, warm the mixture with your hands once in the piping bag to help softened the butter more).
- Spoon the mixture into a large piping bag fitted with a star-shaped nozzle. Pipe the biscuits into circles (about 5cm in diameter) onto 2-3 large baking trays lined with baking paper. You should be able to pipe about 36-40 rounds from this mix. Leave some space between the biscuits as they may spread slightly in the oven.
- Chill the biscuits in the fridge for at least 15-20 minutes to allow the butter to firm up again and prevent the biscuits from spreading whilst they bake. In the meantime, preheat the oven to 170°C.
- Bake the Viennese Whirls in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes until pale golden at the edges. Leave the biscuits to cool on the tray for 5 minutes, then carefully transfer them to a wire rack using a palette knife or fish slicer (the biscuits are very fragile!). Leave to cool completely.
- To make the buttercream, beat the butter in a mixing bowl for about 4-5 minutes until soft and very pale in colour. Then beat in the vanilla, followed by half of the sifted icing sugar. Once incorporated, beat in the remaining icing sugar until fully incorporated and smooth. If the mixture is too thick to pipe, you can add a splash of milk (for more tips check out my Buttercream Baking Basics post).
- Put the buttercream into a piping bag fitted with a star nozzle. Find two biscuits that are similar in size for sandwiching together. Spread some of the homemade or shop-bought raspberry jam over one of them and pipe a swirl of buttercream onto the flat side of the other. Then sandwich the two halves together and repeat with the remaining biscuits.
- Lightly dust the Viennese Whirls with a little more icing sugar to serve.
