December Cooking Challenge: Peppermint Swirl Cookies

Paula051907 · December 2009

Original recipe (can't find exact link):

Peppermint Swirl Refrigerator Cookies

Makes 10 dozen

Ingredients

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup sugar

1 each egg

2 tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 cups flour, all-purpose

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

2-3 drops red food coloring

1/4 cup pink sugar

Directions

In a large bowl, combine butter, sugar, egg, milk, and vanilla; mix until light and fluffy.

Lightly spoon flour into measuring cup; level off. Combine flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. Add to butter mixture; mix well.

Place half of dough into a plastic bag or wrap in plastic. To remaining half of dough, add peppermint extract and red food color; mix well. Place in plastic bag or wrap. Refrigerate both portions about 1 hour.

Divide each portion of dough in half. Roll 1 part white dough into a 10x8-inch rectangle between 2 pieces of plastic wrap. Set aside. Repeat with 1 part pink dough.

Remove top sheet of plastic wrap from both the pink and the white dough. Place pink dough over white dough; remove plastic wrap from pink dough.

Trim edges, if desired. Starting at the 10-inch edge, roll up dough jelly-roll fashion, removing plastic wrap from bottom as dough is rolled.

Repeat with remaining dough to form second roll.

Place 2 tablespoons of the pink sugar on separate sheet of plastic wrap. Roll 1 roll of dough in pink sugar, pressing gently into dough. Repeat with second roll.

Wrap in plastic wrap; refrigerate 8 hours or up to 1 week.

Heat oven to 375. Slice cookies 1/8 inch thick. Place 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

Bake for 5 to 7 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool 1 minute; remove from cookie sheets. Cool completely.

My changes:

A lot, really. LOL I cut the recipe in half, first of all because the thought of 10 dozen cookies scared me! The half recipe DID NOT make 5 dozen cookies, although I think I cut them thicker (~1/4") which I'd do again. They got a little puffier, which I like, so I would place them more than 1" apart. LOL I put them 4-5 in a row on my cookie sheet and several of them touched.

I also didn't chill every time it said chill, although I can see there'd be some benefit to that. I wanted to get these made in one day, so I threw the rolled-up dough in the freezer for an hour (which it was pretty hard by then!) and then transferred it into the fridge.

I used a lot more food coloring (I used a no-taste Wilton gel for the red and made it fairly strong red) and also added green to the white dough to make it red & green for Christmas; in place of rolling the entire roll in pink sugar, I sliced each cookie, then dipped the edges in green sugar. I'd absolutely do both the two colored dough and dip each cookie again - they looked pretty cool. I also probably doubled the amount of peppermint extract and they still weren't OVER THE TOP minty - if you used just the recipe amount of extract, I don't think you would've thought of them as peppermint at all.

Overall, yes these were a little PITA to make for all the steps, but they weren't complicated nor did they take a long time to make, refrigeration aside. I absolutely plan to make them again, though. The cookie itself isn't WOW - really is just a sugar cookie with some peppermint extract and food coloring thrown in - but people seemed to be impressed with the design and by using the two colors, they looked too festive NOT to make again.