Xmas Swirl Cookies

I made these cookies ages ago but never baked them because of the oven situation. What I did was I made them, rolled them up and then threw them in the freezer, to be cut and baked later. It was kind of frustrating to make as I was a bit over ambitious and I decided to go for three different colours instead of the two that most people shoot for. Anyway, in the end I did get them to roll, but I have to tell you it was a struggle and I was cursing them. I had my doubts that they were going to look good when I cut them after all of my difficulty rolling them, but they look beautiful and perfectly even.

To get enough cookie dough to facilitate me making three layers (and three colours), I increased the original recipe by 50%. That way I would have the same amount of dough for each colour that was originally called for, for the two colour recipe. Follow? Or is it way too early / late for that. Either way, just go with it, I'm going to explain my three colour way. If you want the two colour way, just follow the link below to the original recipe. Because of adding 50% more, the quantities are kinda different, but all doable values. Just warning you.

I substituted out the flavouring called for and put in peppermint extract in the green dough. It's not bad, but I think if I make these again (even though I like mint), I'll just stick with a bit more vanilla and call it a day. After all, the other two colours just tasted like regular sugar cookies so it was a bit different to have a bite of sugar cookie then a bite of peppermint sugar cookie.

One final note. The original poster commented that this recipe was not to be made in your KA Mixer. Instead you were supposed to use a food processor. My food processor wasn't going to be big enough for this amount of dough, plus I'm yet to find something my KA doesn't do well, so I disobeyed instructions and used the mixer.

Just a disclaimer, I had fun taking pictures and because the making process was spread over something like 4 days, I got a lot of pictures.

Recipe comes from Sprinkle Bakes.

Makes 3 dozen cookies

Ingredients

3 C. All Purpose Flour

3/4 Tsp. Baking Powder

3/8 Tsp. Salt

1 C. Icing Sugar

3/8 C. White Sugar

1 3/4 C. + 1/8 C. Butter

1 1/2 Tsp. Vanilla

3/4 Tsp. Peppermint (or other - maybe more vanilla) Extract

1/2 Tsp. Green Food Colouring

1/2 Tsp. Red Food Colouring

Sprinkles

Directions

~In large mixing bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt and the sugars and mix to combine. 

~Add in the butter and process just until the dough turns crumbly.

~Add the vanilla and mix until a ball forms.

~Divide the dough evenly into 3.

~Place ball 1 in a bowl and reserve for later (white ball)

~Place ball 2 back in mixing bowl and add your peppermint extract and green food colouring and mix to distribute the flavour and colour. Put green ball aside.

~Place ball 3 back in cleaned mixing bowl and add the red food colouring and process just until colour is distributed evenly. 

~Roll each ball of dough out onto a sheet of wax paper, to an 1/8" thick. Cover with wax paper and transfer to a cookie sheet and place in the refrigerator to chill for at least 2 hours.

~When dough has chilled, remove from fridge and peel away the top sheets of waxed paper from the doughs.

~Place the white dough down first and brush the top surface with water (I forgot this step, maybe that was one of the reasons I had difficulty. Oops).

~Using the wax paper under the green dough, invert the green dough and place on top of the white dough. Pull away the wax paper. Press down to seal them together.

~Repeat the last two steps with the red dough on top of the green dough.

~Trim the edges so that each layer is even.

~When the dough has warmed slightly, roll up the doughs so you get a long roll. If the white layer tears as you roll, pinch and patch it back together. (You won't be able to tell once you cut it into slices anyways).    **I found it easiest to cut the rectangle of dough into two before rolling it, otherwise it was going to be too long of a roll and very awkward to work with. So cut the rectangle half way down the longest part of the rectangle to make two shorter long sides.

~You can now get rid of the last piece of wax paper that was underneath the white layer.

~Once you have your log, roll it a couple of times with both hands along the countertop the make sure everything is adhered together properly.

~Roll your logs into sprinkles and press in gently with your hands to make sure they have stuck.

~Wrap logs in plastic wrap and chill until firm enough to slice. Or alternatively you can place in the freezer and defrost when needed (which works beautifully when you had no oven to bake things in).

~When log is chilled, cut into slices either with a knife or preferably use dental floss (strange but it works amazingly). These cookies don't rise or expand so what size you slice is going to be the size that you pull out of the oven.

~Bake in a preheated oven at 325 F until the white portions of the cookies have just started to turn golden. Approximately 15-20 minutes.

Enjoy (and pat yourself on the back for accomplishing a lengthy and difficult recipe that actually turned out well in the end.)