Here's the thing about Venetian sweets: They're not too sweet. They are, like the play of light on the deep green waters of the city's canals, a brief, subtle and delightful experience.

The single exception is a contemporary creation from the Veneto, the countryside outside of Venice, that has spread around the world: tiramisu, coffee-soaked ladyfinger cakes in a thick, sweet cream, dusted with bitter chocolate.

Tiramisu aside, the baked goods associated with the city of canals — primarily cookies and single-layer nut or fruit cakes — are meant for dipping or munching with sweet wines or tiny cups of espresso. They are delicate in flavor, somewhat hearty in texture and very pleasing. And most of them are quite accessible to the home cook.

In her charmingly illustrated and informative book, "Venice & Food" (Arsinale Editrice, 1998), artist and food expert Sally Spector writes: "Venetian sweets share the same general qualities as the rest of this cuisine: They are simple, uncomplicated, even rustic, and may sometimes be overshadowed by the beautiful, more refined dolci from other places in Italy."

Foremost among these is baicolo, a thin-sliced, very dry, yeast-raised confection that in America would more likely be called a cracker than a cookie, despite its sugar and butter content. Baicoli, a form of biscotti that are twice-baked, are produced by a single company, Colussi, and rarely made at home. They are designed for dunking and are sold in collectible tins decorated with scenes of 18th-century Venice.

But the most ubiquitous cookies are bussolai, ring- or S-shaped cookies made from a rich batter of flour, sugar, egg, butter, vanilla and lemon peel, sometimes leavened with yeast or flavored with white wine.

Bussolai are often made in the manner of pasta, by blending the flour and sugar, making a well in the center, and mixing in the liquid ingredients. The soft, malleable dough — again, about the consistency of pasta dough — is then rolled into long fingers, which are formed into wreaths or S shapes called "esse."

These cookies don't look like much, but once you bite into one, you understand their attraction: butter, eggs, sugar, lemon — what's not to like?

Another very popular Venetian confection is the zaleto, a tapered, oval, buttery yellow mound made with finely ground corn flour and filled with dried fruit and, sometimes, pine nuts or almonds.

A related dish is pinsa, a kind of sweet pizza made with corn and wheat flours, butter, candied fruit, nuts and a little grappa (Italian brandy). It might be sweetened with sugar or honey and, in old times, was flavored with pork stock and was associated with the Christian Epiphany holiday in January.

Also very popular are spumile — meringues — displayed in bakeries in a wide variety of colors and flavors. These are often served with Venice's favorite beverage, prosecco, a light sparkling wine.

Many of the cakes of Venice are what we would call sweet breads, leavened with yeast rather than baking powder or baking soda, enriched with butter and eggs, nuts and dried or fresh fruits. One of the best I experienced was a more conventional almond cake at a famed bakery, Rosa Salva Antico Caffe, in the Castello neighborhood of Venice. (If you go, be sure to visit the nearby church where many of the city's leaders, the doges, were interred.) Even eaten standing up (because it's cheaper than if you sit down) with an espresso, this cake made a lovely continental-style breakfast.

Back now to tiramisu, Venice's most recent dessert innovation. Featuring two ingredients for which Venice is responsible for introducing to Europe — chocolate and coffee — this dish is said to have been invented in Treviso, near Venice, sometime after World War II. It is not precisely an innovation; Italian cooks have been making desserts with mascarpone, a rich white cream cheese, for generations. The basic formula is mascarpone, sugar, egg yolks beaten into a rich cream; ladyfingers (sponge cake or Savoy biscuits) soaked in espresso with a sprinkling of fine espresso and bitter chocolate powders.

There are infinite variations. At Vini da Arturo, a wonderful little restaurant near the Piazza San Marco, they serve a froth of the ingredients (but no cake!) that is positively ambrosial.