Viennese whirls with vanilla bean buttercream

Makes 14-20 filled biscuits 

Total time 1 hr 15 mins, plus cooling

Get ahead

The unfilled whirls will keep for 3-4 days in an airtight container. Keep the filling in the fridge and bring to room temperature before filling the whirls. Once filled, they will last for 1 day. The filled and unfilled  biscuits can be frozen.

You will need

• 350g soft salted butter, plus extra for greasing

• 250g plain flour, plus extra to dust

• 100g icing sugar, sifted, plus extra to dust

• the seeds from 2 vanilla pods or 2 tsp vanilla bean paste

• 100g cornflour

For the vanilla buttercream

• 100g soft salted butter

• 100g icing sugar, sifted

• the seeds from 2 vanilla pods or 2 tsp vanilla bean paste

Step by step

• 1
Preheat the oven to 180°C, fan 160°C, gas 4. Grease 1 large or 2 smaller nonstick baking sheets, dust with flour and knock away the excess. Use a 4cm pastry cutter to mark circles in the flour, spacing them 5cm apart – do mark out the circles as the mixture spreads, and the biscuits can become very large if made any bigger than this.

• 2
Beat together the butter and icing sugar until smooth and creamy. Beat in the vanilla. Sift in the flour and cornflour and beat until smooth. You will have a very stiff paste.

• 3
Spoon half of the mixture into a piping bag fitted with a 12mm star nozzle. Pipe 4cm-wide rosettes onto the baking sheet(s), within the circles, and bake for 15-18 minutes until golden around the edges. Leave to cool for 5 minutes, then slide onto a cooling rack. Take care as they are delicate. Repeat with the rest of the mixture – first cool the baking sheets under the tap, then grease, flour and mark out again.

• 4
For the filling, beat together the butter, icing sugar and vanilla until smooth. Spread a thin layer over the underside of one biscuit and sandwich together with another biscuit. Dust with a little icing sugar.

Recipe by Debbie Major

Recipe photograph by Tara Fisher