Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Pinwheel Cookies


Pinwheel cookies are a fun treat for a blustery spring day.

We made these cookie when I was a kid.
I've always loved them.
They are a little funny.  There is no sugar in the dough.
The sugar is all on the top.

Here it is spring time, begging me to make pinwheel cookies,
even though I had determined not to use artificial food coloring anymore.
I went to certain store specifically to get India Tree sugars.
I get there & the India Tree sugars they carry are NOT the nature's colors line.
Argh!!!  I got the ones with poison in them, because we we set on making these cookies that day.
If you plan ahead, you can order from Amazon.

The recipe is from Pillsbury, some cookbook that looks more like a little magazine.
I seem to have lost it, though.  So, this is my best recollection of it all...

Pin Wheel Cookies
makes about 30


3/4 cup Butter, softened
8 oz Cream Cheese, softened
1 Egg, separated
2 cups Flour
1 T. Baking Powder

dough -
Cream together the butter & the cream cheese in your mixer.
Beat the egg yolk in & set the white aside for later.
Beat the flour & baking powder in, just until together in a sticky dough.
Pat into a flat disk & wrap with plastic wrap.
Chill in the refrigerator for at least an hour.

sanding sugars
M & M's
30 Popsicle sticks

assembly -
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Roll dough into a rectangle, as evenly as you can, to about 1/8" thickness.
Trim up the edges to make it straight, into a size where you can get 3 x 3 squares.
e.g. a 9" x 12" shape will give the ability to cut 3 squares across & 4 squares down.
Cut your squares 3" x 3".  Then slice down about 2" from each corner, toward the center,
like so -


Place your squares on your cookie sheet, leaving room for the sticks between.
Lightly beat your egg white with a fork & brush your squares with the white.
Press a stick in the center & sprinkle with sugar.
Now you need to pull in every other corner to the center point at the top of the stick.
Now it looks like a pinwheel, right?
Stick the M & M in the center.
If you are tempted to add a dab of egg white to the top to "glue" it all together, don't do it.
Everything will slide apart.



Anyway.  So, put the M & M in the middle.
Gillian sorted the chocolate candies & very carefully planned the color combinations.




Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.

Tada!  Happy Spring!



Be sure to make enough to share with friends.
(p.s. we cheated on our 40 day simple food plan since we were hosting small group at our house...) 


1 comment:

Stef said...

those look SO fun and very cute! thanks for the recipe.