Chocolate-Nut Pinwheel Cookies
This recipe from Taste of Home magazine, by Sedonie Zeitler of Luxemburg, Wisconsin. Makes about 3.5 dozen cookies, depending on how thick you cut the slices. 2/3 cup butter softened 3/4 cup sugar 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla extract 1 3/4 cups all purpose flour 1/2 tsp baking powder 1/4 tsp salt (omit if using salted butter) 1/3 cup ground almonds 1/4 teaspoon almond extract 1/4 cup unsweetened baking cocoa In a large bowl cream the sugar and butter together, beat in the egg and the vanilla extract. Add the baking powder and salt (if using) and blend. Add the flour and stir together until it forms a soft dough. Bring the dough into a ball shape and cut it in half evenly. Take one half and blend in the almond extract and ground almonds. Take the other half and blend in the cocoa. Roll out each of the dough portions between sheet of waxed paper (if you don't use waxed paper or parchment paper the dough will stick like crazy to the rolling pin). Form each portion of dough into a 16 x 8 inch rectangle and try to make sure the dough is of even thickness all over. Place each rolled out piece in the refrigerator for a half an hour. Once chilled, remove the waxed paper top from the chocolate dough and to with the white dough. Press gently all over to stick the pieces together. Roll up tightly (jelly roll style) starting from the long side. If the dough cracks when rolling, it may be too chilled, let it warm up slightly. Wrap finished dough log in waxed paper and chill in refrigerator for several hours or overnight. The dough roll need to be quite firm. It the roll isn't firm enough it will deform or "squish" when you are cutting it. Cut the roll into 1/4" slices. Place slices about an inch apart on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake at 350F for about 9-11 minutes until cookies are set (no longer doughy in the center) and/or the bottoms are just the tiniest touch light brown. Let cool on cookie sheet for 5 minutes and then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. These freeze and travel well. Anticipated FAQ's Yes you can use pretty much any kind of sugar cookie dough for this. Yes you can use another kind of ground nut. Yes you can leave out the ground almonds and the almond extract. No that wasn't a real hypnotic dough, I was only kidding.
