I’ve been going through butter like it’s water lately.
These cookies are largely to blame. I first made them as favors for our family who came to celebrate Noah’s birthday.
Didn’t they turn out great?
I liked the end result so much that I then made a LOT some of the Christmas variety with red and white and green and white. The Christmas version yielded a couple hundred cookies.
I’m always amazed how quickly a couple hundred cookies can just disappear once they are bagged by the dozen (or more) and shared with our dear friends. Just like that…GONE.
But I loved sharing and making them. I think it’s those darn sprinkles (sorry, nonpareils for those foodies out there) that just finish the cookie off and make it cute.
You really can’t go wrong with almond extract. It makes this cookie taste like a little bit of sweet, buttery perfection. But if almond isn’t your thing, try any other extract: coconut, strawberry, peppermint — whatever you want.
Colorful Swirled Cookies
slightly adapted from sprinklebakes.com
2 cups cake flour, unsifted
½ teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
⅔ cup unsifted powdered sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
2 ½ sticks unsalted butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
½ teaspoon almond extract, or other flavoring
2 tablespoons unsifted cake flour
food coloring
nonpareil decors (i.e. sprinkles)
Combine the flour, baking powder, salt and sugars in a food processor and process briefly to mix. Add the butter in pieces; process with on/off bursts until the mixture has the consistency of cornmeal. Add the vanilla and process until the mixture just forms a ball.
Divide the dough into 2 equal portions then return one of the portions to the food process. If you’ve got a food scale, use it to make sure your portions actually are even. Add the almond extract, food coloring, and the extra tablespoons of flour to the processor and process until just incorporated.
Roll out each portion of dough between sheets of waxed paper. You want a rectangle about 11 × 8½ inches by ⅛ inch thick. Leave the dough between the sheets of waxed paper and slide onto a baking sheet. Refrigerate until firm, for at least 2 hours or up to 3 days.
Remove dough pieces from refrigerator. Pour the nonpareil decors into a shallow rectangular dish, such as a 9 × 13-inch pan.
Peel off the top sheet of waxed paper from both doughs. Brush the vanilla dough very lightly with water. Using the waxed paper, lift the colored, almondy 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 waxed 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 jellyroll. As you begin to roll, gently curl the edge with your fingertips so you don’t get any air pockets as you roll dough into a log. As you roll, the vanilla portion may want to tear, pinch tears together as they happen and keep rolling.
After forming the dough into a log, throw away the waxed paper. Gently lift the log on top of the nonpareil decors in the dish and roll until the log is completely coated with decors. Wrap the log in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm enough to slice (from 4 hours to a week, or freeze for up to 2 months; defrost in the refrigerator overnight before slicing).
Heat oven to 325 . To bake, slice the log into ⅛- to ¼-inch-thick cookies and bake on parchment-lined baking sheets for 15 to 17 minutes, until the cookies are no longer shiny on top and the bottoms of the vanilla portion are golden.
Double Batch 