Sugar Swirl Cookies

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I put a stand mixer on our wedding registry because I wanted to make sugar swirl cookies. I fell in love with them years before we got married, but I never made them because you needed a stand mixer to make the dough. I put a mixer on our registry and, oddly enough, it was the one thing that wasn't purchased off it.

Fast forward two and a half years to Wednesday. That's the day my brothers and their girls shocked me and Pete with a stand mixer for Christmas. Of course, the very first thing I made were sugar swirl cookies.

Sugar Swirl Cookies

Now, I'll be honest. These were pretty time consuming. Making them was easy (using the stand mixer made me feel like I was cheating because it made making the dough so simple!), but it was a lot of refrigerator time.

I'm basing my recipe and method off one from Just A Taste.

What You'll Need:

• 2 sticks butter
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 3 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 10 drops food coloring
• 1 ounce sugar sprinkles

What You'll Do:

Put the butter in the stand mixer and mix it (with the flat blade) until it's broken down.

Add the sugar and beat until combined.

Add an egg. Mix until combined. Add the second egg. Mix again. Add the vanilla. Mix.

Add the flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix until a dough forms.

Turn off the mixer and take out the dough. Form it into a ball, then cut that ball in half.

Put one of the dough ball halves back in the mixer with about ten drops of food coloring. Mix until it's a color you like. If you need it richer, add more food coloring. If you need it lighter, add less.

In an 8x8 pan, stretch out the "white" dough ball half until it fills the entire bottom of the pan, forming a square. Put a piece of plastic wrap on top of it. Make sure the wrap is double the size of the pan itself. You'll see why in a second.

Put the colored dough ball half on the plastic wrap. Spread it out until it fills the entire pan. Now, take that extra wrap and cover the colored dough completely.

Put the pan in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Take out the dough and unwrap the colored square. Use a pizza cutter to cut it in half. Put that half between two pieces of wax paper (trust me on this part. I tried it without a top sheet of wax paper and it was a nightmare). Use a rolling pin to roll it out into a large rectangle about 1/8 of an inch thick.

Cut the white dough in half with a pizza cutter, put it between two sheets of wax paper, and roll it out to be the same size as the colored dough.

Pull a sheet of wax paper off of each, then, carefully, place the white dough on top of the colored dough. Go over it a few times with the rolling pin to make sure to doughs stick together.

Peel off one sheet of wax paper. Tightly roll the dough into a log. Wrap it in the wax paper, then in plastic wrap.

Follow the last four steps for the second halves of the dough. When you're completely done with both, put the logs in the fridge for an hour.

Take a log out, unroll it, and cover the outside completely in colored sprinkles. Wrap it back up and put it in the fridge for four hours.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Take the log out of the fridge (for the last time!). Cut it into 1/8 inch slices. I ended up with about 38 slices per log.

Now, since this post is probably inspiring you to register for a stand mixer, I'm going to suggest you also register for two baking mats. They are a dream. You put them on a cookie sheet instead of greasing it, and even the stickiest of cookies just pop right off. 

So put your cookie slices on a baking mat and bake for 11 minutes. Subsequent batches will bake a little less.

Cool them on a wire rack (which is also something we registered for and use all the time).

BRIDAL BABBLE: Would you make these sugar swirl cookies?