Tags
baking, breakfast, food, fruit preserves, kid, mom, pastry, pastry dough, Pinwheels, quick recipe, recipe, vegetarian
Sometimes when I get up in the morning (usually on the weekends) I just don’t feel like having yet another bowl of oats or cereal or whatever it is I’ve been monotonously eating for breakfast all week. Not having all that much more time on the weekends, though, before the masses (Thomas and Anna) start charging into the kitchen ravenously looking for something to eat, I still look for quick and easy options that aren’t too hard to throw together. These throwing star shaped breakfast pastries are just that and can be prepared and baked quicker than a batch of pancakes or waffles can and are so much more fun to eat! I found the dough recipe on the blog Table of Colors the other day, where she made chocolate crescents with the dough, and decided to make some with Anna. We used only half the dough to make 8 crescents and the rest I used up this morning to make these pinwheels. The dough reminded me so much of the delicate sour cream pastry/cookie dough that my mom always made in the winter time when we were kids, which she would then fill with various flavored fruit preserves (Polaner) and shape into pinwheels like these. It was nice to have a sweet reminder of home to warm up to on this cold, January morning.
Breakfast Pinwheels
Dough adapted from a recipe by Ulla Svensk via Table of Colors
150 g (1 stick +3 Tbs) cold but slightly softened Butter
1 3/4 cup Flour
2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 cup Sugar
250 g (1 cup) Quark, Greek Yogurt, or Sour Cream
Fruit Preserves*
Milk for brushing on top
*I used Raspberry but Strawberry or other berry flavors work well too. You can also add pieces of chopped chocolate or sprinkle thinly sliced nuts over the top.
Preheat the oven to 200°C (400°F) if baking right away. In a large bowl combine all the dry ingredients and mix well. Cut the butter into tablespoon sized pieces into the flour mixture and with a pastry cutter (or blender) cut the cold butter in until it’s well combined with the flour and forms a crumble. Mix in the quark (or yogurt or sour cream) with a spoon until combined. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead a bit with your hands to form a smooth dough. Don’t over work the dough, just bring it together until it forms a smooth ball. Cut the dough in half if you want to make 8-10 pinwheels and store the rest in the fridge, wrapped in plastic, for up to two days. You can roll the whole thing out at once if you want but working with half the dough at a time is easier, plus you will have fresh pastry dough waiting in the fridge for another day if you store half of it now. Roll the half portion of dough out into about a 40cm (16″) long 20cm (8″) wide and 0.3cm (1/8″) thick rectangle, as best as you can, these are just estimates you can make it however big or small you want. Trim the edges to make the rectangle smooth and set the trimmings aside (which you can form into another pinwheel of equal or smaller size depending on how much dough you trimmed off). Cut the large rectangle in half length wise dividing it up into two 4″ wide by 16″ long rectangles. Then cut each smaller rectangle three times, width wise, at equal intervals which should make 4 squares from each rectangle and a total of 8 equally sized 4″x4″ squares. Starting about a half inch away from the center point of the square make four cuts out to each corner, leaving a spot in the middle that is uncut for the filling (see picture at the top of the post). Place a heaping teaspoon of fruit preserves at the center of each square and fold every other corner up to the middle of the pinwheel, pressing down slightly to anchor the dough there. Brush the dough with milk and optionally sprinkle with nuts and/or chopped chocolate pieces. Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown on top. Eat hot from the oven or allow them to cool if you can!
