Viennese whirls

Beating the butter and sugar for as long as you can, helps give these beautiful little biscuits their melt-in-your-mouth texture, and sandwiched with oozing raspberry jam and vanilla buttercream, they certainly won’t last long on your cake stand.

The butter for these biscuits must be very soft, so if necessary give it a 10-second burst in the microwave to soften it.

Tip the butter into the bowl of a stand mixer, add the icing sugar and beat for at least three minutes until really pale, soft and light.

Add the vanilla bean paste and mix in.

Sift the flour, cornflour, baking powder and salt into the bowl. Add one tablespoon of the milk and mix until smooth and thoroughly combined. If the mixture looks a little stiff, add a little more milk to loosen it. Spoon the mixture into one of the piping bags and pipe even rounds onto the prepared baking sheets, leaving a little space between each one to allow for spreading during cooking.

Chill the whirls in the fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat the oven to 170°C (325°F) Gas 3. Bake on the middle shelf in the preheated oven for 10–12 minutes until firm and starting to turn golden brown at the edges. Leave to cool on the baking sheets for three minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Meanwhile, prepare the buttercream. Put the butter and icing sugar in a large mixing bowl and cream together until really pale and light. Add the vanilla bean paste and mix again to combine. Spoon the buttercream into the remaining piping bag.

Turn all of the biscuits upside down so that they are flat-side uppermost and pipe half of them with a swirl of buttercream. Spread the remaining biscuits with raspberry jam and sandwich them together.

Dust with icing sugar to serve.