Halloween Pinwheel Sugar Cookies

We're starting Halloween Treat Week with a kooky cookie seemingly swirling out of a bubbling cauldron. Fun, fresh and deliciously freaky, we've concocted something to mesmerize anyone daring enough to taste!

Cauldron Smoke Halloween Pinwheel Cookies

(approx. 3 hours; 2 1/2 hours prep & rest time, 15 mins to bake)

(makes 18-24 cookies)

5 cups (1 lb 9oz) of flour (sifted)

2 tsp of baking powder

1 tsp of salt

1 1/2  cups (3 sticks) of butter (softened)

2 cups of sugar

4 large eggs

1 tsp of vanilla

3 colors of concentrated gel food coloring (we used 4 total; a purple and magenta to make the bright purple)

Some fun, festive sprinkles

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a large mixing bowl.

Use a hand mixer or a stand mixer to cream the butter and sugar. Mix in the vanilla and add the eggs, one at a time, letting each egg fully incorporate before adding the next.

Now, continue to mix adding the dry ingredients a little bit at a time to allow it to mix in properly. Mix until it forms a dough.

Here, we used our food scale to weigh out the dough into three equal portions that we could mix the food coloring into.

After a TON of mixing and color tweaking with a just a dash of Halloween magic, we had our spooky hued dough ready to rest for 30 mins to an hour.

After the first, yes first, rest, roll out each ball of dough into a flat rectangle. It REALLY helps to do this on a piece of plastic wrap because this stuff is sticky and will stretch when you try to move it. We may have cleverly ensured a consistent thickness by setting a cutting board on either side and roll on top of them.

The next part is a bit tricky; carefully stack the sheets, lining them up as much as possible. It helps to keep on the plastic that you rolled the dough onto until it's stacked before peeling the plastic off and stacking on another layer.

Ok, hard part over. Now, simply roll the whole mess up into a big, swirly log and wrap it up in some more plastic wrap and pop it into your freezer for at least an hour or overnight.

Alright, we're almost done. Take out your cookie log and grab your sharpest knife. Slice your dough into 1/3 inch thick discs and then roll them in your sprinkles before placing them on a parchment-lined cookie sheet about half an inch apart.

Bake for 12-13 minutes until the bottoms begin to brown.

Let them cool for 5 minutes before setting them out for the costume party or stay in and munch on them while binging on horror movies.