Holiday Cookie Exchange #2
I almost did not make the Cookie Exchange this weekend. There was a not so nice occurrence earlier this week and I have been distracted. I came home from work the other day in the middle of the day and caught someone casing some houses on my street. When I drove up I scared them away. Luckily the neighbor two doors down from me noticed the same two young males and stayed around in his car in the drive way to see if they were going to leave. I went down to talk to his wife and she told me that they have been on this street checking out houses and parked cars earlier in the week. Then almost to add insult to injury, I found out that three houses behind where I live got robbed in one day in late October. I canceled my next client and canceled the spinning lesson that I had been looking forward to. I stayed home until we could have time this weekend to do some extra security measures for the house. I am a wreck. Baking and cooking were not a top priority this weekend. I remembered late this afternoon that I had some posts I needed to do of which this one was the most important!! This event is hosted by Dawn at So Cal Foodie.

I wanted to make cookies that would show up well on the blog. I am not a great photographer so I need all the help I can get! So I made red and green cookies. They are called Pinwheels. I have this cute little cookie book (Christmas Cookies by Linda Curtis) that I picked up some place eons ago. I just looked in the front jacket of the book and the copyright date is 1987, although I don't think I have had the book that long! I think it was on some clearance rack. So here is the first step to making the cookies...

I mixed up the dough recipe and divided it into two batches in order to color it. I needed a batch of red and a batch of green. After mixing, I wrapped the two batches up in wax paper and put them in the refrigerator for a hour. Then...I rolled out the red dough in one spot on the cart, then the green. I took the green dough and folded it up and set it on top of the red dough. I used a floured rolling pin and mashed them together. I did my best to roll the two doughs to make a log. I made the mistake of not putting enough flour on the cart so it was a bit sticky. I took a pastry cutter and dipped it in some flour and tried to help the roll go more smoothly. Then I took a pastry brush and brushed off the excess flour as I rolled the dough up. I rolled the dough up in a piece of wax paper and refrigerated it for two more hours.I cut up the dough into thin slices and put them on plain cookie sheet. They baked at the alloted recipe time and temperature. While I enjoyed making these cookies, I didn't follow the directions as far as the time the dough was supposed to be in the refrigerator. I should have waited the 24 hours it called for but they turned out just fine anyway. I have to say that I would cut them thicker than the recipe says. I would also know if my oven runs hot or right on the money. The edges tend to get brown right before your very eyes if you let them stay one second past the recommended baking time. I have some of those in the pictures. They spread out, so don't crowd the pan with too many rounds.

Pinwheels
Yield: about 3 dozen (depending on the thickness you cut them)

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup softened butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 ounce unsweetened chocolate, melted (I didn't so this part because I wanted colored cookies-so when I divided the batch into two I used food coloring on each batch)
Preheat oven to 400 degrees and grease several cookie sheets (I didn't do this either). In a large bowl, beat butter at medium speed until light and fluffy. Gradually add sugar, egg and vanilla while continuing to beat. Sift flour (there are not enough hours in my day to sift flour but you can if you feel you have to)into a small bowl with salt and baking powder and add to butter mixture. Mix well. Divide dough in half and mix chocolate into one half. Wrap both halves in plastic and refrigerate for several hours.

Roll out plain and chocolate dough separately into oblongs about 1/8 thick. Place dark dough on top of light dough and roll up layers together, jelly roll fashion. Wrap up and refrigerate again, over night.

Cut roll into 1/8 thick slices and place on greased cookie sheet, spacing about one inch apart. Bake 8 minutes. Cool on racks.