These fun colorful pinwheel cookies are made with Taro and Blue Pea Flower. For a tea time cookie that makes a flavorful and unique pinwheel choice. These cookies still have the familiar buttery shortbread flavor but a bit of that vanilla flavor from the Taro powder as well.
When I recently bought Blue Pea Powder to try I was inspired to find a way to use it with the lighter lavender of the Taro powder. Each is so fun to work with in the kitchen. My son is obssessed with Taro milk tea so we had this huge bag of powder on hand. The sweet vanilla floral flavor of the Taro lends itself well to cookies and other desserts. The vibrancy of the Blue Pea Flower is also hard to ignore. It came out more of a deep purple in this cookie. I imagine if you want a bluer blue from the pea flower powder you could cut back on the amount added.
Either way these pinwheel cookies offer a refreshing change from chocolate chips and nuts. Simple enough to make they do take a bit of time as they need to chill. Make these cookies for your next social or tea party experience.
How do you get Taro and Blue Pea Flower pinwheel cookies looking so pretty?
The cookie dough is pretty straight forward to put together. You start the usual way of creaming the sugar and butter. Next you add in the egg. This is the only moisture this cookie is getting so if you find it a bit dry when you mix in the colored powders you can add a smidge more butter. I do mean about a quarter of a tsp. No more.
After mixing the sugar, butter, and egg we add in the flour, baking powder, salt, and blend well. The cookie dough should now be formed and it may seem like there isn’t that much I promise you’ll get a good sized batch out of it. Divide your dough now into two equal portions.
Put half in one bowl and mix in the Taro powder. That beautiful lavender makes the cookie dough so pretty! In the other bowl add the Blue Pea Flower powder. My son and I made these together and he definitely go the better half to mix. Taro powder smells sweet and vanilla like. Blue Pea Flower well to me it smells nasty. However it does make the dough a lovely deep blue.
Once you have the dough prepared you will be rolling it out into rectangles. Each rectangle will be approximately 12 inches around so you’re dough is fairly thin. After rolling the dough carefully put one half on top of the other half of cookie dough. Using your fingers gently roll the edge up to form a log. Don’t overpack your log it will spread when baking.
After you have the cookie rolled into a log wrap it tightly in saran wrap or parchment paper and put it in the fridge to chill. You will want to leave it in the fridge for one hour. This time is needed to firm the cookie dough back up. If you cut too soon you will likely mush it and it won’t have those lovely distinctive swirls.
Take the cookie dough out of the fridge after an hour and slice evenly making circles. Your cookie log may have some excess flour from rolling that’s not a problem. Your circles may be slightly off. You can lightly pinch them into a more circular shape but don’t overdo it. Any small gaps between the two colored doughs is not a problem as they will seal up during baking.
Put the cookie slices onto your prepared baking sheet. Bake the pinwheel cookies for 9-12 minutes in the oven at 350 degrees F. You’re cookies will have a very slight golden edge at the bottom when done.
Remove from oven and let cool before removing from the pan. These firm cookies are perfect for dunking in a glass of milk or eating with a cup of tea!
How to change it up.
If you don’t have either Taro powder or Blue Pea Flower powder you can leave one half plain and mix cocoa into the other half. This creates the traditional pinwheel we all know and love.
Another option is to leave the dough all one color and flavor it with lemon or orange zest. These buttery cookies would be excellent baked and then dipped in chocolate.
Taro & Blue Pea Flower Pinwheel Cookies
Equipment
- 2 Mixing Bowls
- 1 Tbsp
- 1 Teaspoon
- 1 Mixing Device I use a fork for mixing cookies its super easy.
- 1 Cookie Sheet
- parchment paper optional
Ingredients
- 1 Cups Flour
- ¼ tsp Baking Powder
- ¼ tsp Salt
- ½ Cup Butter
- ½ Cup Sugar
- 1 Egg
- 1 tsp Blue Pea Flower Powder
- 3 Tbsp Taro Powder
Instructions
- In your mixing bowl cream together sugar and softened butter.
- Mix in the whole egg blending well.
- Add all the dry ingredients to the creamed mixture except the Taro and Blue Pea Flower Powders.
- Divide dough equally in half.
- Put half in the other mixing bowl. Add into one the Taro powder until well blended.
- In the other half the dough mix in the Blue Pea Flower Powder.
- If you find that either is too dry add a tiny bit more butter to the dough.
- Lightly flour your table/counter surface.
- With a rolling pin roll each dough into a rectangle or as close as possible to it. Make sure each rectangle is the same size.
- Carefully lift and lay one color on top of the other.
- Taking the dough by the edge closest to you roll it together into a log.
- Put the log of cookie dough in a tightly wrapped piece of saran or parchment. Put in fridge to chill for one hour.
- The chilling is important so it will slice nicely.
- Remove after chilling and slice with knife into equal thickness. Not overly thin and not overly thick.. Think the thickness of an Oreo cookie.
- The cookies may not be perfectly round or even touching dough on dough. However they will spread as they bake and close in any small gaps.
- Place cookies evenly apart on prepared cookie sheet.
- Bake at 350℉ for approximately 9-12 minutes. The cookies will have slight brown edge when finished.