Christmas Mint and Raspberry Pinwheel Cookies

Every now and then I got an almost uncontrollable urge to bake biscuits and I always research some I want to make. Of course the Christmas period only weakens my motivation to stick to healthier treats. And I can never turn down the school's Christmas fair request for baking volunteers.
It's a win-win.

I remember vaguely pinwheels-like biscuits from my childhood, although in my memories they are softer and probably used a completely different recipe - like the no-bake sweet salami cut in the form of a pin wheel.

Although they are different, I though they would look perfect for Christmas biscuit gifts and for the school fair.
The recipe I used requires very little flour compared to the other ingredients so the dough is very very soft. I had to roll it between food wrap so it doesn't stick and break. It stays in the fridge for 30 minutes at the moment as I write and if hard enough but still pliable I will arrange the two parts together and roll. Then I will cover in sprinkles and leave in the fridge for another hour or two until really hard before cutting in rings.

I tried two variations - vanilla and chocolate and raspberries and mint. The chocolate and vanilla ones were the first I tried and I easily added another cup or two of flour or so as I didn't believe the recipe. They were way too hard as a result.

However this time I decided to follow the recipe thoroughly and let's see what the results will be. - The result was very soft and a bit messy to make but nice once baked.

RECIPE:

• 390 g plain four (or 350 g flour + 40 g cocoa powder for the plain and chocolate ones)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 226 g unsalted butter
• 200 g sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/4 tsp each red and green gel food colours - for the red/green pinwheels
• 3-4 drops raspberry essence
• 4-5 drops spearmint flavour
• 100s and 1000s edible pearls for decorating the rim.

METHOD:

For the Christmas red-green pin wheel cookies I decided to flavour the red dough with raspberry essence and the green one with peppermint essence. I think it went well, but the peppermint was a but too overpowering.

Beat the butter and sugar together, add the eggs and the vanilla extract and then the dry ingredients without the colours and the flavours.

The dough is going to be very very soft.

I divided it into two parts and coloured and flavoured respectively.

Now comes the tough part - I put each dough between two sheets of plastic wrap and rolled as it was to a 1/2 cm to 1 cm thickness.

Placed in a baking tray and left in the fridge for 30 minutes.

The same with the other colour. 

After the 30 minutes passed I placed one of the rolled doughs on a plastic wrap sheet, removed the plastic wrap around it and then put the second one on top of it and started rolling - as tightly as possible. When rolled I covered with the pearl sprinkles covered in wrap and put in the fridge again overnight.

On the next morning - I cut the roll to slices of about 1/2 cm thick, placed on a baking sheet with enough space between - the cookies expand) and baked in the oven for 10 minutes at 180 C.

The cookies are very soft when out of the oven so wait until they harden before removing from the sheet.

They hold well in a container for over two weeks. Common, they are biscuits - they are supposed to last for months with the appropriate quantities. :)

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Bottom line verdict: The second try with the unaltered amount of flour was much better.