I was invited to my first ever holiday cookie swap. Now remember, I'm just now starting to get into this whole baking thing, so this was no easy task for me. I borrowed a friend's Kitchen Aide mixer (man I love that thing) and decided I wanted to go for the win and make swirly christmas cookies. I found the recipe on Pinterest (of course) and got my ingredients together, and went at it. Now it wasn't exactly easy, or pretty. I had a small meltdown halfway, so I asked Charlie to make his yummy PB cookies just in case I royally screwed up.
First off, the swirly cookies. Courtesy of
Our Italian Kitchen.
If you see the original source
here, you'll see that she did a much better job than me.
Ingredients:
2 cups flour, plus possibly a few more tbsp (the original recipe called for cake
flour, but I just used regular old all-purpose flour since I was all out of a
softasilk)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2/3 cup unsifted powdered
sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (cut in
chunks)
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp of food coloring of your choice(and/or 1/2
tsp of any desired extra extracts)
1 1/2 cup holiday sprinkles
Directions:
1. In a stand mixer, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugars with paddle
on medium until well blended.
2. Add butter in, gradually, and continue
mixing. Add in vanilla extract. At this point, your dough will form a ball on
your paddle.
3. Remove all your dough and divide into two equal parts.
Return one portion back in to the mixer and add the food coloring and any extra
extracts. I used Betty Crocker gel food coloring in green and vanilla extract for
this batch. You could coordinate your colors and flavors, for example green food
coloring matched with a mint extract or yellow with a lemon extract, etc. Also,
if you are using liquid food coloring, you will need to add a few tbsp of flour
to keep the dough from becoming too wet. Mix until the color is spread out
evenly.
4. Roll out each portions of your dough, between two sheets a wax
paper until is reaches about 11 x 9 inches and is 1/4 inch thick. Slide both
unto a cookie sheet and chill in the refrigerator for at least 2
hours. *This is where my mini meltdown ensued, because the dough was falling apart. I would leave it in the fridge for longer than 2 hrs.*
5. When firm, remove the top sheets of wax paper from both. Brush
the uncolored vanilla dough
lightly with water using a pastry brush. Then flip
the colored dough onto the vanilla uncolored dough so they are stacked atop each
other and even. Press the edges lightly with your fingertips to seal them
together. Using a small pairing knife, trim the edges of the dough to make
straight, even lines, if you want. I simply pressed the ends together and had 2 yummy end pieces covered in sprinkles :)
6. Pour out sprinkles onto a large platter and set
aside. Be sure your dough is still cold, but flexible. Once it's ready, begin
rolling the long side of dough into a swirl, jelly-roll style. Now, don't get
nervous (like I did) if the outer layer of uncolored dough tears a bit. It's no problem, just
pinch and pat those tears and voila, then just keep rolling.
7. Now gently lift your dough log onto the sprinkles and roll away. Cover the
log completely with your sprinkles. Wrap the colorfully decorated log in plastic
wrap twice. Depending on when you want to bake the cookies, either place the
wrapped dough into refrigerator for about 3-4 hours or you can put it the
freezer and keep it there for up to 2 months. (If freezing, give yourself time
for the dough to defrost in the fridge overnight before cutting.)
8. Now the easy part. Slice your dough into 1/4-1/8 inch slices and bake on parchment lined baking
sheets. Bake at 350 for 15-17 minutes until edges are slightly golden. Let the
cookies rest on the baking sheet for about 5 minutes, then move them to a cookie
rack to finish cooling. Enjoy your whimsical Christmas cookies!
Not the prettiest thing in the world, but not bad for baking from scratch cookies for the first time :)
*Stay tuned next week for Charlie's famous PB cookies*
