Christmas Cookie Day and a Yummy Recipe

      Every year, the first Saturday of the month, I host a Christmas cookie baking day with my mom and my sister-in-laws. We try to make a variety of cookies and then split them up between us (those that are lucky enough not to be eaten by us) to share with our families or freeze for future parties. This year we kept it simple and just made three different types. Today I want to share with you my Aunt Sharon's recipe for Peppermint Pinwheels. My mom made these cookies every year when I was a kid and they have become a necessity to make each Christmas season.

      Here's the basic recipe for these yummy cookies:

4 cups of flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3 sticks of butter
3 cups of sugar
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon peppermint extract
red and green food coloring

      Beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in egg yolks and vanilla. Stir in dry ingredients 1/3 at a time- blend well. Divide dough into four equal balls {you will have to get your hands doughy} :). Two of your balls will stay plain. In the other two you will knead in 1/2 t. each peppermint extract and food coloring. One ball green and one ball red. {I don't have pictures of every step, sorry}

Next, you are going to roll out your dough. First roll out some plain dough to roughly a 16"x10" size. {It's important to measure because you want your plain dough and colored dough to be the same size}

Once you have plain and colored doughs rolled out, you are going to flip your colored dough onto the plain dough. Make sure you roll them out on plastic wrap or wax paper or you're in for a headache!

 Gently roll the two doughs together to get out air bubbles and trim your edges if you have a little excess. Now you are going to roll the dough up lengthwise. Use the plastic wrap underneath your dough to do the work. You want this roll to be nice and tight. (I'll show you later what I mean)

Once you have your log of dough, put it on a cookie sheet and into the fridge to get firm, for about an hour.
Then, slice your dough about 1/4" thick slices and place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees until done {do not brown}.

We had a happy accident as we were making our cookies, my dear sweet S-I-L accidentally colored all of her doughs so we have some that are red and green. We took it a step further and rolled this log into sprinkles before we chilled it. She's not quite a peppermint pinwheel expert but we're working with her! ;)

     Here are some of the results:

     You can tell on some of the red/pink cookies that there were air pockets. This especially happens on either end of the rolls where the dough might not be as even or rolled as tight. Trust me though, they taste just as good!

     This has been such a fun tradition and we've even gotten the little girls in the family involved. (We missed Kelly and Aria)!

 

You may want  a little coffee to go with all of those cookies though. You can't start em too young! ;)

S-I-L Karen and Ellie

 

Here are the results from our day!

       Happy Baking!


                     -Jody

I'm linking up here:

http://shabbyartboutique.blogspot.com


http://tatertotsandjello.com/2011/12/2nd-annual-ttj-cookie-exchange-party-and-holiday-cookie-recipe-link-up.html