Thursday, October 14, 2010

Pinwheel Cookies

I've made these twice now and I'd have to say they are really not my favourite to make. There's a lot of rolling out and chilling and rolling out again. It takes a long time, too long in my opinion.

The recipe calls for them to be made into corners which is how I made them the first time. The second time, however they were for a fundraiser at my dad's work and so I dyed them the colours of the fundraising organization.

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
1 egg

3 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt

Optional:
1/3 cup Irish cream flavoured coffee whitener (I didn't add this)
1 tbsp cocoa

Beat butter and icing sugar. Stir in egg. Then add in 1 cup of flour and the salt. Mix well. Mix in the second cup of flour until is is completely incorporated, then add the final cup of flour. Mix in the rest of the flour well.

Divide dough into two or more sections. (I'm going to just use 2 for an example but extras are easy to add in) If desired, mix coffee whitener and/or cocoa into one portion. Mix until evenly coloured. Shape each portion into a log, wrap in plastic and chill for 2 hours or so. Roll out between two sheets of wax paper until it is about a 4x24 inch rectangle. Do this for each portion of dough. Then stack the sheets of dough on top of each other. Roll the stack of dough-sheets together. Roll the dough from the short end (if you're making corners, if making circles, roll from the long end) like a jelly roll. Wrap in wax paper or plastic wrap and chill for 6 more hours or overnight. Cut roll into 1/4 inch slices. Then, if you like, cut each slice into quarters. Bake at 350 for about 10 minutes.

If you wish you can make a chocolate coating to dip the quarters in.

Melt 1 cup milk chocolate chips in the microwave (or however you prefer). Toast some almonds and/or coconut. Dip the rounded edge of the cookies in the chocolate and then in the nut mixture.