Grade: B (for taste) A+ (for looks)
Time it takes: for-ev-er (5 hours or so, lots of hands off time while the dough chills)
Yield: about 36 cookies
Source: adapted from Our Italian Kitchen and Rara Bakes - I started with the dough from Our Italian Kitchen and I absolutely hated it, it was terrible to work with and tasted horrid. But, because I really liked the look I found a new dough recipe and it went much better. However, I used concepts from each so I decided to site each, although the original idea came from my friend Atty who made pinwheel cookies a few months back.
I have a love hate relationship with sugar cookie dough. To me it tastes boring and has a random sweetness to it, but if you want to make a decorative cookie it is a good dough to work with. Similar to royal icing - tastes horrible, but can be used to make prettiness. Maybe I am still too new to the cookie world and there is some other magical decorative cookie dough out there that tastes amazing and one day I will stumble upon it! Or maybe I just think sugar cookies taste like poo, and I am one of the few...along with Chris, and my grandma, and everybody else everywhere...
I send out goodies packages to friends and family at Christmas-time. I wanted a really festive fun looking cookie to send, and I really liked the idea of a green and red pinwheel cookie. A good bit of the recipes I found are the same exact dough recipe as the one I first tried from Our Italian Kitchen - which ended in miserable results. The dough was a pain in the ass to get to the right consistency, and then it wouldn't roll properly no matter how chilled and un-chilled I got the thing. I decided to just roll it and bake them for a taste test. I put them in for the 15 minutes recommended time, and when I went to check on them they were black - pink (from a red dye miscalculation) green and black. Ugh I was so annoyed. They tasted like crap anyway! So I just threw the whole thing away and started fresh.
The dough recipe from Rara Bakes (which will be listed below) was a dream to work with compared to the above mess. I was extra careful with my liquid dye to flour ratio, but it wasn't super necessary. The dough is suppose to be rather soft, but chills beautifully...angels were singing when I rolled this stuff out I swear! Make sure to use at least half a bottle of dye to get really vivid colours and go slowly when rolling the two doughs into a jellyroll. Also use different colours and extracts to really tailor it to your specific needs. Next time I will roll out the two doughs a bit thinner and wider to get a better swirl going on, but I still think they turned out very Christmas-y anyway.
Click below to expand for the recipe!
- 1 cup butter, softened
- 1 1/3 cup granulate sugar
- 2 eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 3 cups flour, plus about 2/3 cup extra
- 1 1/2 cups sprinkles
- Red and green food colouring, about half a bottle each
- also, patience, plastic wrap, and parchment paper
Directions:
Cream butter and sugar together for three minutes. Add eggs and vanilla, mix well. Add flour one cup at a time, stirring until everything is well combined. The dough will be soft. Divide into two, and colour each half your desired colour. Using liquid food colouring will add too much moisture to the dough so you will want to mix in about 1/3 cup flour to each half so that it is the right consistency. Wrap up both in plastic wrap and place in the refrigerator to chill for 1-2 hours.
Tear off 4 pieces of parchment paper. Place one coloured dough blob between two of the pieces of parchment paper and roll into a rectangle about 1/8" thick. Repeat with the other coloured dough blob. Place each on a cookie sheet and refrigerate for 1-2 hours.
Take off one piece of parchment paper from each coloured rolled out dough. Slightly moisten one side of one of the doughs and then place the rectangles on top of each other. Trim the edges so they are the same size. If the dough is soft enough to roll but firm enough not to just collapse when touched, then roll the dough up jellyroll style. If the dough needs to be a bit more chill to it place it back in the refrigerator for 20 minutes or so and then attempt to roll up.
Pour your sprinkles onto a platter. Take your dough log and roll the whole thing in the sprinkles covering it completely.
Wrap the rolled up and sprinkled dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2 hours, or overnight (if overnight let the dough sit out of the refrigerator for about 10-20 minutes to soften up slightly before slicing if it is too solid).
Remove the dough from the refrigerator and cut into 1/4" slices. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake at 350 F for 9-10 minutes...do not over bake! Let cool on a wire rack and enjoy.