3rd Day of Christmas: Holiday Pinrectangles

Okay, so they're actually called Holiday Pinwheel Cookies, but mine turned out to be shaped more like rectangles than wheels.

I found this beautiful and delicious-looking recipe on Pinterest and decided to make them to bring over to our friends' house last night. I am so glad to have such a generous friend as Danielle who loves to host us! We taught her and Andrew how to play Settlers so they've been having us over to play and making delicious dinners for us! So I can at least bring along a tasty dessert. :)  

Back to the rectangles - this recipe is HARD to make! A little difficult to actually do, but seemingly impossible to do perfectly like the lady on the blog. 

little rectangles ready to be baked

So here is the recipe with my adjustments to make it easier for you. Still, don't expect them to be perfect on your first try. Unless you're crazy amazing with dough. I think making them knowing what I did wrong, they would look a lot better. Fortunately you get to learn from my mistakes slash the lady that wrote this recipe did NOT give enough information for someone to be able to make them perfectly the first time! (And she left off adding the peppermint...come on.) [Here is her recipe regardless.]

Holiday Pinwheels

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon peppermint extract
• 1 tablespoon red food coloring
• 3 tablespoons milk
• Powdered sugar and flour, for rolling out dough 

(OR halve all the ingredients and mix in two separate portions, if you want your two sections of dough to be exactly even*)

Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder in a large bowl and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar together in another large bowl. Add egg, vanilla, peppermint, & milk and beat until incorporated. Gradually add the dry mixture, beating until combined. 

Remove half of the mixture from the bowl*. Add red food coloring, beating until fully combined. You may have to knead the colored dough a bit to get it mixed thoroughly. 

On a sheet of waxed paper covered in flour or powdered sugar, roll out dough to form a large rectangle, about 1/4-inch thick. MAKE SURE that the wax paper is completely covered with flour so that you can easily remove the dough later!! Repeat this step with the other half of uncolored dough with no food coloring.

Very carefully, slide the red dough on top of the white dough and slide the parchment paper out. (I just flipped the dough upside down and flopped it on top of the other one. Fun method if you like flour bombs :)) Trim edges if uneven and patch if necessary. Roll dough into a log lengthwise, creating a swirl effect. Do not worry if the dough starts to tear a little when you are rolling it. This is normal. Simply mend it with your fingers as you go along. (I used a LOT of flour here!) You will need to roll the log entirely so that you can pick it up later, so even if it is sticking a lot, keep trying!

Pour the sprinkles on the wax paper and roll the log onto them until they stick and it's covered (good luck :)). Wrap tightly with saran wrap and place the dough back in the refrigerator and let chill for 2 hours.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Slice the dough into 1/2-inch slices and place on a parchment lined sheet tray about 1-inch apart. Bake for about 10-15 minutes.

(this picture is supposed to be horizontal. i hate blogger)

My favorite thing about this recipe is that you end up with a log of dough that you can save for later. I made just 12 to take over to Danielle's, and then make another 12 today and still have about half the dough leftover. Plus, it tastes DELICOUS! Make sure you make them on an empty stomach so you can lick the bowl clean. :)