the classic viennese swirl.

These are one of my all time favourite biscuits, crisp yet soft, melt in your mouth - the ultimate tea time treat...

Viennese swirls are a biscuit that look impressive for guests but are actually surprisingly easy to make. The worst bit it washing the piping bag! - I use a reusable silicon piping bag but you can get disposable ones that make the washing up easier (but aren't so good for the environment).

The soft light crumbly texture of the biscuit melts in your mouth at every bite, with the jam and buttercream sandwich filling adding that extra luxury.

Warning!

Do not eat all at once, these biscuits are very moreish...

There are a couple of points to add to my below recipe related to butter choice for the best result:

*the recipe calls for butter - you can substitute this with a vegan alternative but to get the ultimate buttery biscuit taste, they are better with regular butter.

** the addition of vanilla extract can sometimes make the mixture curdle if you are using a butter alternative. I think this is to do with the reaction between the added water/oil that is in the ingredients of butter alternatives. To be safe, I would probably leave out the vanilla extract or use vanilla powder instead for the same flavour.

Using up the leftovers to make chocolate dipped fingers always bring back happy childhood memories of making them with my mum in our home in Cornwall, where I was 'allowed' to dip the ends in chocolate!

Ingredients

200g butter*

50g icing sugar sieved

1tsp vanilla extract

2tbsp cornflour sieved

125g plain flour sieved

75g white rice flour sieved

For the filling:

35g butter

80g icing sugar

jam of choice - I used low sugar strawberry as this is what I had in my cupboard

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas mark 4

1. Add the icing sugar and the butter (torn or cut into pieces) into a large bowl and beat together for 2-3 mins until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla extract**

2. In another bowl, mix together the 3 flours, making sure that you have sieved them first.

3. Little by little, add the flour mix into the butter/icing sugar mixture and beat together until fully combined. Try not to over beat the mixture as it could result in your biscuits being too short or crumbly,

4. Prepare a piping bag with a star nozzle, and fill with the mixture.

5. Pipe small swirls, approximately 5cm in diameter, onto a lined baking tray. When piping, start at the centre and move outwards in a circular motion. Don't worry if they are not that neat, once they cook they will settle a bit... Be sure to leave a few cm between biscuits to allow room for them to swell.

6. Bake in the middle of the oven for 15 mins or until a pale golden colour. The biscuits will firm up once out of the oven so don't worry if they are not too hard when you take them out of the oven.

7. Allow to cool on tray.

Tip:

If you have any extra mixture left in the bottom of your piping bag (not enough to make a swirl), you can pipe into 2 lines of about 5-7cm in length and dip them in chocolate once bakes and cooled, or sandwich them in the same way as the swirls!

To make the buttercream:

• Whisk together the butter and the icing sugar until light and fluffy.

The final step (before eating) - putting the biscuits together

• Pair up biscuits of similar sizes and turn upside down. The biscuits might be quite fragile so handle with care.

• Spread a teaspoon of buttercream on one half and a teaspoon of jam on the other half.

• Sandwich the two halves together and voila! They are ready to eat.