Viennese Whirl Cookies

When it comes to baking I've found there aren't many ingredients that begin with V, this month's AlphaBakes randomly chosen letter. There's vanilla, and you might get away with the generic 'vegetable' for a carrot cake, or similar. When looking for a 'name' beginning with V, the index in my cook books started with Victoria sandwich and stopped with Viennese, with nothing in between.  I hope the other entrants have a better imagination than me!

Danish pastries are called Viennese pastries in Denmark, but my yeast bakery is a bit hit and miss, and I don't have time for misses at the moment. That left Viennese Whirls, or Melting Moments as they are called in some cookery books. All the available recipes are remarkably similar - some use a little more sugar or vary the proportion of cornflour and plain flour - so I don't really need to give one here. They are usually flavoured with vanilla too, so the letter V gets a double workout!

The dough I used didn't hold it's definition well during baking, but that might be because my piping kit is cheap and nasty and didn't include the right sized nozzle either. However, the flavour and texture was just right - light, crumbly and melt in the mouth - and you can still see the hint of a swirl in the photos. These cookies could be considered a little on the dry side, which is why they are often baked without the glacé cherry on top and sandwiched in pairs with a buttercream and jam filling.

The AlphaBakes Challenge is a monthly baking challenge to make something  featuring a randomly chosen letter - this can be part of the name of the product or one of the major ingredients. It is hosted jointly by Caroline, from Caroline Makes, and Ros from The More Than Occasional Baker, who take turns to generate a random letter and collate the entries. This month Ros is hosting and her random letter generator picked V!