My youngest daughter loves to bake! It is something fun that we can do together. And, with the impending arrival of our new baby boy in January, it is something fun that we can do together – just the two of us. Last Saturday, as we cozied up on the couch, she and I searched Pinterest for a fun new recipe to try. She spotted and picked out this candy corn pinwheel recipe, which I definitely would not have attempted myself!
The recipe relies upon a basic sugar cookie dough. There are not a lot of ingredients, but enough for her to have fun measuring out each one into a bowl. She also enjoyed adding food coloring and turning the dough into a different color! (I like to use these gel icing colors.)
Stacking the colored dough rectangles on top was not super easy, but this step does not need to be exact. You will end up slicing the dough into an even rectangle. Just remember: the more you mix and roll the dough, the warmer and harder to work with the dough will become.
The one important thing you will need in addition to the recipe ingredients is patience. The dough needs to be refrigerated twice in order to properly 1) roll the dough into rectangles and form a log and 2) slice the log into cookies so that they maintain a circle shape.
Once we rolled our log, we covered it with orange sprinkles, although this step is not necessary (but it is fun!).
We had some scraps left over from cutting our “log” of dough, so we rolled up our leftovers and cut them into leaf shapes using these pie crust cookie cutters.
Enjoy this colorful recipe and whatever fun the fall season brings your way!
PrintCandy Corn Pinwheel Sugar Cookies
These colorful candy corn sugar cookies are perfect for Halloween and Thanksgiving! They are a fun treat to make with kids.
Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking powder
- 1 cup butter, at room temperature
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- yellow and orange food coloring
Instructions
- In a large bowl, combine flour and baking soda. Set aside.
- In a mixing bowl (fitted with a paddle attachment), cream the butter and granulated sugar until creamy. Mix in the egg and vanilla extract.
- One cup at a time, add the flour to the sugar mixture until combined.
- Separate the dough into three even balls. In a mixer, mix one ball with yellow food coloring and set aside. Mix another dough ball with orange food coloring. (One dough ball will not be colored.) Place each dough ball in a ziplock bag (or wrap with plastic wrap) and refrigerator for 1+ hour.
- Once the dough balls are firm, roll each color out on a floured surface in a rectangle about 1/2″ thick (it does not need to be perfect). Stack the rolled out dough colors on top of one another. (Candy corn order: yellow, orange, white).
- Trim the dough into a rectangle and set aside scraps. Starting at a long vertical side, slowly roll the dough tightly to form a log. Roll the log in sprinkles if preferred. Wrap the log in plastic wrap and freeze for 20 minutes or refrigerate several hours or overnight.
- Heat oven to 350F. Unwrap dough from its plastic wrap and cut into slices about 1/2″ thick. Place two inches apart on parchment lined cookie sheets.
- Bake cookies for 10-12 minutes. Set aside to cool.