Christmas Cookie Baking: Chocolate Mint Pinwheels and Candy Cane Cookies

These pinwheels started with some dough I made with the intention of making spritz cookies. Well, it was not a good dough for spritz cookies, I decided after a much struggling to make it work. So instead, I added peppermint extract to the original dough (the green), and made a second batch in chocolate! I rolled both out into rectangles, used an egg wash to glue the two rectangles together and rolled them up into a log. After freezing for awhile, added an egg wash to the outside, rolled in red sugar, then sliced these beautiful cookies. They look so perfect! They are also really minty (I am not stingy when it comes to extracts.)

These lovely cookies are made with a dough similar to the cookies above, but flavored with vanilla and almond extracts. The two color doughs are rolled into little snakes, twisted together, lightly rolls again to smooth them out, then shaped into a cane before baking. While still hot out of the oven, I sprinkled them with a mixture of crushed candy canes and white sugar. Next time, I think I'll add peppermint extract instead of almond so they have a stronger peppermint flavor. I used the recipe from here.

I did eventually make some spritz cookies! But it was a lot more difficult that I imagined. Not my favorite thing!

I still have intentions of doing cut out sugar cookies and gingerbread men but I am running out of time. Only six days until Christmas? Time to panic!