Vanilla Chocolate Swirl Cookies are buttery, shortbread-style slice-and-bake cookies with a striking vanilla-and-cocoa spiral that looks bakery-fancy but uses simple pantry ingredients. The tender, melt-in-your-mouth texture and balanced vanilla–chocolate flavor make them perfect for holiday trays, gifting, or everyday tea-time treats.
Why these swirl cookies work so well
This recipe follows the same basic pattern as many pinwheel or spiral cookies: a rich butter-and-powdered-sugar dough divided into vanilla and chocolate portions, rolled into thin sheets, layered, and then rolled into a log. Chilling the log before slicing, which is standard in spiral and Turkish “spiral cookie” recipes, helps keep the edges sharp and the swirl well-defined during baking.
Using powdered sugar instead of granulated gives a finer crumb and a more delicate, almost shortbread-like bite, a technique used in some European and Turkish-style spiral cookies. A small amount of baking powder keeps the cookies from becoming too dense while still preserving a compact, sliceable dough.
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