Sprinkle spiral cookies

I first found these sprinkle spiral cookies here on one of my favourite blogs to visit - gorgeous food and always superbly photographed.

Mine were the peppermint version with bright green dough, that actually faded remarkably in the oven to a perfect minty green. It seems I'm adding mint to heaps of stuff lately. Can't get enough of it, maybe because its so hot and mint seems such a cooling flavour?? Does that even make sense?

The recipe is pretty straightforward and simple to use, except that it requires a food processor, and my food processor is ancient and slow. So the dough took forever, and even adding in the vanilla it was not enough liquid to bring it to a dough, so I added a small amount of water until it was the right consistency.

Sprinke Spiral Cookies

2 cups plain flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup unsifted icing sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

125g butter

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 teaspoon peppermint (or other) extract

1/2 teaspoon food colouring. I used green gel.

2 tablespoons plain flour

1 1/2 cups 100's & 1000's

Heat oven to 175 deg C. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and the sugars in a food processor and pulse briefly to mix. Pulse while adding in the butter in pieces until the mix looks like breadcrumbs. Add the vanilla and process until it forms a ball. This is the part where I had to add extra water.

Divide the dough into 2 parts and put one back into the food processor to colour and flavour. Once that is done, add a little more flour to the mix and add until incorporated into the mix.

In between 2 sheets of baking paper, roll out each portion of dough into a rectangle and refrigerate for at least 2 hours. I cheated and pulled mine out too fast. This is partly why my cookies aren't perfect rounds! You can keep this in the fridge for up to 3 days.

When ready peel off the tops of the baking paper from each dough. Brush the vanilla dough very lightly with water. Using the baking paper, lift the peppermint 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 baking 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 sponge roll. As you begin to roll, gently curl the edge with your fingertips so you don't get any air pockets as you roll it into a log. As you roll, the vanilla portion may want to tear, pinch tears together as they happen and keep on rolling.

After forming the dough into a log gently lift the log on top of your tray of 100's & 1000's (or any sprinkles you want) and roll until log is completely coated. I actually found mine weren't sticking very well so I brushed the roll lightly with water. You can either slice now if its still cold or wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm enough to slice. This keeps for a week and will freeze for 2 months.

Slice approx 5cm thick, sprinkle with a light covering of caster sugar and place on tray lined with baking paper and bake for 15-17mins, until the cookies are no longer shiny on top and the bottoms of the vanilla portion are golden.

These ones are heading into my kids lunchbox tomorrow for their first day back at school for a nice bright snack!