Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Chocolate Vanilla Spirals

Last week, Walter was in Chicago on business. His office missed my baking, so I am back again!

Chocolate Vanilla Spirals



These are called "Icebox Spirals and Bull's-Eyes" in Martha Stewart's Cookies cookbook (which is where I found the recipe, of course). They are delicious. The chocolate is very subtle but definitely there, and they're so fun to make! The recipe also made Bull's-Eyes (vanilla with a chocolate center), but I thought the spirals looked better, so I made all spirals instead.

Ingredients
-1 1/2 cups butter at room temperature
-1 3/4 cup sugar
-2 eggs plus 1 large egg white, lightly beaten (white separate from whole eggs)
-1 teaspoon salt
-2/3 cup whole milk
-1 Tablespoon vanilla
-5 cups all-purpose flour
-1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add whole eggs and salt and mix until combined. Add milk and vanilla.
3. Add flour slowly and mix until a firm dough forms.
4. Separate dough into two equal parts. Add cocoa powder to one part and mix until combined.
5. Roll out doughs. To form bull's-eyes: Roll 1/4 of the chocolate dough to a 12-inch rod about 3/4 inch thick. Refrigerate until firm. Roll half of vanilla dough to a 12 by 4 inch rectangle about 1/2 inch thick. Brush with egg white and place chocolate rod along length of vanilla dough. Roll dough with your hands and enclose chocolate rod. Trim excess. Refrigerate until firm (I froze mine).
6. To form spirals: Roll out remaining chocolate and vanilla doughs on lightly floured surface to 1/4 inch thick. Cut into two 9 by six inch rectangles. Brush egg white onto top of each rectangle. Place vanilla dough on top of chocolate dough. Starting on one long side, roll up dough. Gently press and pinch edges to seal. Refrigerate (or freeze) until firm.
7. Cut cookies from logs into 1/4-inch thick rounds. Space 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until firm, 12 to 15 minutes. Cool on wire racks.

4 comments:

Carrie said...

Wow those look good. I love trying new cookies.

What's Cookin Chicago said...

Beautiful job on those spirals! I've always found them to be so intimidating!

Joanna Eberhart said...

Joelen--They were actually REALLY easy and fun! I was sort of nervous that they'd be hard, but the dough was easy to work with and they were really easy to cut and roll. And after they were chilled, it was nothing to cut and bake them!

Anonymous said...

those are so pretty! kind of a holiday feel to them!