These vegan Viennese Whirls are just as buttery and delicious as their counterparts but without the dairy. Find out how to make them below.
Classic British Biscuits
Despite the name, Viennese Whirls are a quintessential British biscuit made from two shortbread swirls that have been sandwiched together with buttercream and jam.
How to make Vegan Viennese Whirls
There are six simple steps to making Viennese Whirls:
- Make the dough - step 1
- Pipe the dough - step 2
- Chill the piped dough - step 3
- Bake - step 4
- Make the buttercream - step 5
- Sandwich together with buttercream and jam - step 6
Vegan Viennese Whirls - step 1
Making the dough is easy. It involves beating the butter and icing sugar together before adding the flour, cornflour and milk. Vanilla and almond extracts are also added for flavour.
Vegan Viennese Whirls - step 2
The hardest of these steps is piping the dough. It's quite thick and so you really need to squeeze it hard to get it to come out. Strong catering piping bags and strong muscles are needed!
Vegan Viennese Whirls - step 3
Each of these steps is as important as the next - especially chilling the dough! I know it can be tempting to skip steps like this but if you don't chill the piped dough you risk it spreading in the oven and that's the last thing you want!
Vegan Viennese Whirls - step 4
The bake on these biscuits is quite short. They will cook in between 12 and 15 minutes. You'll know they're ready when the edges are golden brown.
Vegan Viennese Whirls - step 5 & 6
Making the buttercream and sandwiching the biscuits together with it and the jam is perhaps the most satisfying step. Press gently otherwise the filling will come out the sides or you will break the tender, buttery biscuits!
Top tips for vegan baking
These days its incredibly easy to take a recipe that uses animal products and to swap them for plant based substitutes.
In this recipe, the biscuits and buttercream would ordinarily be made with butter. The key to making these vegan is to use one of the plant based block "butter" alternatives now on the market. It's important that you don't use a spreadable "butter" as they will spread out when they bake.
For more information about vegan baking check out my big guide to vegan baking.
The recipe
Vegan Viennese Whirls
Equipment
- 2 Piping bags
- 1 Star tipped piping nozzle
Ingredients
For the biscuits
- 225 g vegan butter
- 75 g icing sugar
- ½ teaspoon almond extract
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 250 g plain flour
- 25 g cornflour
- 3 tablespoon plant milk e.g. soy milk
For the buttercream
- 100 g vegan butter
- 175 g icing sugar
For the jam filling
- 12 teaspoon raspberry jam
Instructions
- Line two baking sheets with grease proof paper and place to one side.
- In a bowl, cream together the butter and icing sugar until pale and creamy using an electric whisk.
- Whisky in the almond and vanilla extracts.
- In a separate bowl sift together the plain flour and cornflour.
- Add the flour and cornflour mix to the butter and icing sugar in thirds. In between each third of flour/cornflour, whisk in 1 tablespoon of plant milk.
- Spoon the dough into a piping bag that has been fitted with a star tipped nozzle.
- Pipe 24 rosettes of equal size across the two baking sheets.
- Once piped, place them into the fridge for at least 30 minutes or the freezer for at least 15 minutes.
- While the whirls chill, pre-heat the oven to 180C / 356F /gas mark 4.
- Once the whirls have chilled, place into the centre of the oven and bake for 12-15 minutes.
- Remove them from the oven once the edges have become to go golden brown.
- Leave them to cool down on the trays.
- In the meantime, mix the icing sugar and butter to make the buttercream.
- As soon as the biscuit whirls are cold, fill a second piping bag with the butter cream and pipe a small amount of butter cream around the edges of one whirl.
- Spoon 1 teaspoon of jam into the centre then sandwich together with a second whirl.
- Repeat this process for the remaining whirls.
- Dust with a little icing sugar (optional) and enjoy
Nutrition
Afternoon tea recipes
Why not try one of these other British bakes to make your own afternoon tea.
More British Recipes
These British recipes are often inspired by my mother and grandmothers cooking, but don't worry you won't find long stories about my childhood here!
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