Before I hit the wall of baking, I continued my treat-making odyssey to share with my friends for Christmas. I have never made a pinwheel cookie before so I took on Taste of Home’s Fudgy Pinwheel Cookies recipe. I used pecans instead of walnuts and I toasted them ahead of time so they were not super raw, my hubby has a hard time with super-raw nuts. Other than that, I stuck very close to the recipe.
This recipe begins pretty traditionally with creaming butter and brown sugar together, then adding an egg yolk and some vanilla.
You sift together some flour, salt and baking powder into the creamy butter mixture. Bring together. This is where it gets tricky. You need to roll out the dough into a 12″ x 10″ rectangle between pieces of waxed paper. I used parchment and thought it was all good.
Put on a baking sheet and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
To make the filling melt chocolate and shortening together which I did in a makeshift double boiler but the recipe says to do so in the microwave in a microwave-safe bowl. I have had chocolate seize that way so melt the chocolate whichever way you prefer. Stir in the nuts, some condensed milk and vanilla.
Spread mixture over the now-chilled dough. Tightly roll up in jelly-roll style along the long side. This is where things got screwed up. There was a slight seam on the bottom of my parchment that pinched the dough and it kept ripping. Not easy to roll up at all! I managed to patch it back together and wrap in plastic wrap to chill in the fridge for a few hours.
Make sure to slice in exactly 1/4″ slices. Any thinner and they will burn. Any thicker they will not bake through.
See, the ones at the front look fine but the ones at the back? Burned!
These cookies are what my mom would call “a pig” to make, LOL. Are they worth it? They are delicious but seriously, I would only make these once a year. They are super sweet which goes great with the nutty chocolate filling. They are also a crunchy cookie so not my style at all, I prefer soft cookies. They were so sweet my husband could eat only just one. Now that is sweet!
A lot of work and time go into them so if they are someone’s favourite cookie in the world, I would make them for their birthday but as a regular treat? No way! I give these cookies three and a half out of five wooden spoons.
[yumprint-recipe id=’131′]
Ooooohhhhh….those look awesome, Suzie…now that’s something my family and I would think is absolutely delicious…I think the pecans would be even better than the walnuts in with the chocolate.
The filling sounds so chocolatey and delicious. I made some pinwheel cookies too, only they had a date/orange filling. Yep definitely a “pig” to make, I wish I had added nuts as well, they were definitely missing something.
They certainly look delicious!
A pig to make – LOL!
Meanwhile, someone brought cookies to a New Year’s eve dinner last week from Taste of Home magazine: gingersnaps dipped in white chocolate. They were to die for – I bought the ingredients to see if I can make the same magic.
Kudos for you for making these cookies – they look amazing and 3 out of 5 ain’t bad 😉