Description

These pinwheel cookies look fancy, but I promise with that my easy guide with a template will walk you through every step of the way. Chocolate and vanilla cookie doughs are rolled together to form a swirly pinwheel, then sliced and baked into the perfect festive cookies!

Ingredients

Scale

170g unsalted butter, at room temperature
180g granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste or extract
1 large egg (50g not including the shell), at room temperature
310g all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp kosher salt (use less if you are using regular salt and omit if you are using salted butter)
1/4 tsp baking powder
15g dutch process or regular cocoa, sifted

Instructions

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, combine the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Cream on medium to high speed until light and fluffy, scraping down the bowl once or twice during the process. Alternatively this can be done in a bowl with a handheld electric mixer.
Add the egg and mix well to combine.
Add in the flour, salt, and baking powder, and mix until a dough forms.
Remove 360g of the dough and set aside in a small bowl.
Add the cocoa to the remaining dough in the mixer, and mix to combine until the cocoa is incorporated.
Working with one colour of dough at a time, take the dough and place on a a piece of parchment paper. Top with another piece of parchment paper. Roll out to a thickness of 4mm (0.16"), using a piece of A4 printer paper as a guide (see notes below on sizing). You want the dough to be big enough that you can cut around the piece of paper in the next step - take pieces off any areas that stick out and place them in areas that need them, then keep rolling - they patch themselves to the dough.
Once the dough is the right size, transfer it to a baking sheet and repeat with the other piece of dough.
Transfer the dough, still on the baking sheet and between the parchment paper, to the freezer and freeze for 20 minutes - you want it to be fully solid.
Remove from the freezer and remove the top sheet of parchment paper from the first piece of dough. Use the piece of printer paper as your template and use a ruler to cut the dough to exactly the size of the piece of paper. Do the same with the other flavour of dough. If at any time they are getting warm, transfer them back to the freezer (make sure if you are stacking them there is a piece of parchment between them.
Once you have cut out the dough to the size of the piece of paper, freeze both pieces again for another 5 minutes.
Loosen each piece carefully from the bottom piece of parchment - leave the vanilla dough on the parchment paper.
Carefully place the chocolate dough on top of the vanilla dough, leaving about 1cm of vanilla dough for overlap along the long edge (see images in blog post). Gently press the dough together to make sure that there are no air bubbles.
Leave to stand for 5-10 minutes until the dough is soft enough to roll up - if it is too cold it will be hard to roll.
To roll up the pinwheel cookies, starting with the long edge, carefully fold the overlapping vanilla edge of the dough over the edge of the chocolate dough - pull the parchment paper up to help it adhere if you need. Continue to tightly roll the dough up into a roll. If the vanilla dough cracks, just use your fingers to patch it up. Once you have a log of dough, gently roll it back and forth a few times to make sure that it is nicely sealed.
Tightly wrap the log of dough in plastic wrap, and then chill for at least 2 hours or up to 5 days. I like to place mine inside a piece of PVC pipe, or you can use a paper towel roll cut in half to rest the dough in to help it not get a flat edge.
When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 330°f / 165°c. Line 1-2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
Remove the log of dough from the fridge. Unwrap and place onto a cutting board. Using a sharp knife, slice off the end of the dough to reveal the spiral inside.
Slice the log of dough into cookies approximately 1 cm thick. Arrange on the sheet pan / sheet pans (I can fit a whole batch on one pan but you may not be able to depending on how thick you cut them and how big your pan is).
Transfer the cut cookies to the freezer and freeze for 10 minutes.
Bake the cookies for 15-16 minutes, until the edges and middles are set and the edges are starting to go a little golden brown.
Remove from the oven and leave the cookies to cool on the pan for 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
Store cookies in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week.

Notes

If you are scaling the recipe please note that you will have to manually scale values within the method - eg remove 700g of the vanilla cookie dough if you are making a double mix.

Printer paper is a slightly different size depending on what country you are from - a piece of letter paper / A4 printer paper will work great! (approx 8x11" / 20x28cm) - A4 is a slightly different size but will work fine.