A Tasty Trance

It's here! October 1st! The day the switch gets flipped and I go from slightly resembling Wednesday Addams to full blown Winifred Sanderson mode. This is my Christmas morning, but for 31 days straight. This might be why I'm usually sarcastic and mundane the rest of the year because feeling this overjoyed is positively exhausting. Naturally, I have a list of the the creepy items I'm making this month all set and ready to go, and the baking commenced this morning. I've been alternating between rewatching old episodes of the first few seasons of True Blood (you know, when it was still really good and creepy) and Nightmare Before Christmas (I won't be friends with a person that can't admit this is as much as Halloween movie as it is a Christmas one). Even the weather in Florida has decided it's finally going to be fall. Like the moment the calendar page turned, it got cloudy, the breeze got cool, and the temperature felt less like "I think I might be roasting myself right now" outside. My tiny, dark little soul is filled with glee--and cookies. Spooky, trance-inducing cookies. Because everything is bewitching in October.

I put a spell on you...

I'm not going to lie to you--making pinwheel cookies, even when they're bewitching pinwheel cookies, is a giant pain in the ass. They are time consuming in that you have to do a few steps, let dough set, do a few more steps, let the dough set, etc., etc. I am not a patient person. It's my downfall as a baker because I can picture the way I want something to look in my head and get antsy when I can't make it magically appear before me. I realize that makes me sound like I wish I was a witch (I do). But maybe you're not as Type A and can stand taking the time to make something positively amazing and cool. If so, these cookies are definitely for you. And if you slice them thin enough to make 48 cookies (plus 6 made from dough scraps), they're only 74 calories an entrancing pinwheel! But look, they are mostly sugar and butter, so definitely do not leave the lid off the Tupperware for too long, or you're gonna eat them 15 at a time.

I haven't had this much butter out in the open in months.

You're gonna want to peruse the Halloween baking aisle at your local craft store and/or Target to make these spooktacular cookies a reality. Otherwise, the ingredients are fairly simple. Gather up:

• 3 cups of All Purpose Flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup of butter at room temp
• 1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• Gel food coloring in black, electric green, and violet
• 1 tube of Halloween-y sprinkles (I got mine at Target)

 Start by plopping that soft, delicious butter into the bowl of your stand mixer and blend until smooth for a few minutes. Be sure to use the paddle attachment for your mixer.

God I missed you, butter.

 Then add in the sugar and blend on high for 3-4 minutes until everything gets light and fluffy:

Butter + sugar = drool

While the butter and sugar goodness is getting fluffy, get a medium bowl and mix the flour, baking powder, and salt; set aside. Once the butter mixture is done, add in both eggs, the vanilla, the almond extract, and blend well. Once mixed, add in half of the dry mixture and give a stir on medium/low until mostly blended. Add in the rest of the dry mix and blend until just incorporated:

Things may look a little piece-y, but we're not done yet.

Now, split the dough into thirds. Keep one third in the stand mixing bowl. Wipe out the bowl that had the flour mix, and then plop in the remaining dough, split into two equal parts:

Like so. Magic!

Now, plop a bunch of green dye in with the dough still in the stand mixer bowl. Blend on low until everything is the most obnoxiously bright shade of green in the world.

I wasn't kidding.

Turn this out onto a large piece of plastic wrap. Wash out the mixer bowl and paddle attachment. Take another ball of dough, add it to the mixer, and plop a bunch of purple gel dye on it and mix. For these darker colors, after mixing I used my hands to roll the dough around and really ensure there weren't any spots missing gel dye.

Purple--the color of royalty.

Take the purple dough and turn it out onto a separate sheet of plastic wrap. Finally, wash out the bowl one last time, add the last dough ball, and dye this one black. It'll need its own sheet of plastic wrap.

Pictured: the color of my soul.

Now, place another sheet of plastic wrap on top of each ball of dough. You'll want to flatten each dough ball out with a rolling pin to about the size and shape of a piece of 8 1/2 x 11 paper. I hadn't beaten anyone anything with my rolling pin in awhile, so this was a great exercise in stress relief.

Aim for something that looks like this.

Now, ensure each sheet of dough is completely covered in plastic wrap. I placed each sheet on top of some wax paper to make it easier to move to the fridge. Now comes the hurry up and wait part--place each sheet of dough into the fridge and let them set for about 2 hours. I placed each sheet one on top of the other since they were all covered in wax paper and plastic wrap. You can speed up the process by freezing for an hour, but this might make it more difficult to roll up.

So many layers. Like me, in cookie form!

 Now, once the dough has firmed up, take the green layer and remove it from all its plastic wrap. Plop it down on a sheet of wax paper. Take the black dough and remove one side of the plastic wrap. Plop the side without any plastic wrap face down on top of the green dough. Then remove the other side of plastic wrap/wax paper. Finally, repeat this process by layering the purple dough on top of the black. I covered this final sheet with wax paper and smoothed the layers together by rolling over them a few times with my rolling pin.

Then I took a sharp knife and cut any overlapping edges so I was left with a rectangle. Save your scraps! You can roll them up and bake them for 10 minutes at 350 for a few extra cookies.

Very gingerly and gently, start to roll up your dough into a jelly roll shape, a.k.a., a log.

Then I trimmed off my ends so everything was even.

Now comes the fun part! Dump ALL OF THE SPRINKLES into a 9x13 pan.

Then roll your log of dough around, pressing in sprinkles where you need to.

Once fully covered in gloriously spooky sprinkles, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and place in the freezer for 30 minutes.

 Now, after 30 minutes, take the dough log out of the freezer and roll it around on the counter to get rid of the flat bottom that formed while the dough was firming up in the freezer. Once rounded again, place back into the freezer for another 30 minutes. I told you...it takes forever.

But I'll admit it, they really look awesome.

 Preheat your oven to 350 a few minutes before it's time to get the dough out of the freezer. Once somewhat frozen, take a very sharp knife and cut quickly into 1/4" thick slices. Don't saw--the colors will bleed. Cut straight down with a decent amount of pressure. Not so hard that you'll misshape the log, but firm enough that you can cut cookies into shape quickly. Place Parchment paper down on a cookie sheet and load up with cookie slices.

This is one of my all-time favorite color trios.

Bake 12 at a time, spaced a part a bit since they expand, for 10-11 minutes at 350. While one sheet is baking, prepare another cookie sheet with Parchment paper and slice 12 more rounds of dough. Put your remaining dough log into the fridge to stay firm while both your baking sheets are in use.

Soooo swiiirrrrlllyyyy.

 Once cooked, things will look firm but still a tiny bit shiny. Let the cookies rest on the cooking sheet for 5 minutes, then remove to a cooling rack. Continue baking for 10-11 minutes until you've sliced up and baked all your dough. Let completely cool until storing in an airtight container with a slice of bread (keeps the cookies fresh). These really are the perfect way to welcome you and your loved ones to the best month of the entire year. They're bewitching, and by bewitching, I mean super buttery. Like the Halloween equivalent of a Spritz cookie. Not too sweet, but certainly very rich. And they just look awesome. I giggle with evil delight every time I walk by them in the kitchen. I'm beyond ready to show our neighborhood just how weird I am when I put our outside decorations up tomorrow. Lookout world, I'm here to scare the living crap out of you! While enjoying some bewitching pinwheel cookies. On sugar skull napkins. Because I wholeheartedly throw myself into Halloween like a member of the Addams family. I never had a butler growing up, but otherwise, the similarities between my family and theirs is pretty astounding. A family that scares together, stays together! 'Til next time, my fellow eaters!

You're getting very hungry...