I can’t take any credit for this colorful and cheery cookie other than the time I took to make them, they are originally and perfectly executed by Heather at Sprinkle Bakes. A beautiful blog with even more wonderfully created goodies that you can tell have been lovingly hand crafted with her passion for baking. I wish I had the talent to craft and create such masterpieces as some of the cake and cookie designers here in food blog kingdom, but alas.. my creations usually come from rushing to get something sweet out to my family at least once a week.

But I did enjoy searching through bake sites and turning pages of culinary magazines to find something colorful.. and pink, to add to the festivities for my little princesses sixth birthday celebration.

My little daughter had originally designed this three tier cake masterpiece covered in fondant and roses with candied pearls and confectionery ribbon. Dusted with edible gold and trailing in silver. She is a princess by all accounts now and anything less just would not do! Have you ever heard of a mom trying to play hooky from her own responsibilities and call in sick? I just happen to catch a flu mid week and opted out of cake baking by ordering the next best thing .. a princess theme cake filled with ice cream and rich chocolate ganache. She wasn’t thrilled at first but she finally came around and we all had a wonderful birthday event. And still, we have plenty of leftover cake and spiral cookies to share. 🙂

I loved these cookies and they weren’t hard to bake at all. I took Heather’s advise and used my Cuisinart to mix up the dough. She had said it made mixing quick and easy.. she was right! What I do know about sugar and butter doughs is that you need to keep the ingredients cold. Above in my photo collage I reiterated the importance of refrigerating and re-refrigerating your dough. You cannot slice the dough soft and expect to get clean lines where the dough colors don’t run into each other. I also advise using a very sharp knife so not to have the dough smash down.Have fun baking!
Ciao and Buon Appetito..
Laurie

 

Colorful Spiral Cookie Recipe
by Heather Baird @ Sprinkle BakesIngredients

2 cups unsifted cake flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup unsifted powdered sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 ½ sticks unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon strawberry(or other)extract
½ teaspoon(or more)Rose food coloring
2 tablespoon unsifted cake flour
1 ½ cups multi-colored nonpareil decors

Directions

Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugars in a food processor and process briefly to mix. Add the butter in pieces; process with on/off bursts until the mixture has the consistency of cornmeal. Add the vanilla and process until the mixture just forms a ball.

Divide the dough into 2 equal portions then return one of the portions to the food processor. Add the strawberry extract, food coloring, and the extra tablespoons of flour to the processor and process until just incorporated.

Roll out each portion of dough between sheets of waxed paper. You want a rectangle about 11×8 ½ inches by ⅛ inch thick. Leave the dough between the sheets of waxed paper and slide onto a baking sheet. Refrigerate until firm, for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days.

Remove dough pieces from refrigerator. Pour the nonpareil decors into a shallow rectangular dish (such as a 9×13-inch pan.

Peel off the top sheet of waxed paper from both doughs. Brush the vanilla dough very lightly with water. Using the waxed paper, lift the strawberry dough and flip it onto the vanilla dough so they are stacked. Press with your fingertips to seal the two doughs together. Remove the top sheet of waxed paper and trim the edges even.

When the dough is just pliable (but still cold), roll up the dough(begin with the long side) like a jellyroll. As you begin to roll, gently curl the edge with your fingertips so you don’t get any air pockets as you roll dough into a log. As you roll, the vanilla portion may want to tear, pinch tears together as they happen and keep rolling.

After forming the dough into a log, throw away the waxed paper. Gently lift the log on top of the nonpareil decors in the dish and roll until the log is completely coated with decors. Wrap the log in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm enough to slice (from 4 hours to a week, or freeze for up to 2 months; defrost in the refrigerator overnight before slicing).

Heat oven to 325°. To bake, slice the log into ⅛— to ¼-inch-thick cookies and bake on parchment-lined baking sheets for 15 to 17 minutes, until the cookies are no longer shiny on top and the bottoms of the vanilla portion are golden.

This recipe printed from Key Ingredient.