I was in the mood for a festive cookie, something that would look beautiful and taste equally good and add something special to the end of the meal. Sometimes a cake just isn’t what you crave. So, I decided to make a swirl or pinwheel type of cookie which is pizzazzy and put on my creative cap. Don’t worry though, you bake these in logs, marking the cookies at intervals and only cut through after they’ve come out of the oven and cooled somewhat. Easy peasy.

There are all sorts of filled cookies but I was in a “jammy” mood and I particularly like the flavor of raspberry so I decided to go with that and nuts. I love chopped almonds but felt the pecans would add more flavor.

One of the biggest problems with filled cookies of this type is the filling tends to ooze out like mad which is amazingly annoying after all your work. So I came up with a solution which I’m pretty proud of and I share with you happily. It is breadcrumbs, my friends, breadcrumbs. They bind with the jam and help to solidify or thicken up the jam filling and it does not ooze out even a little bit! So, yay, there you go.

The cookie/pastry batter (a note here, DH cracked me up by insisting on calling them pastries. These are not mere cookies, he said, they are elevated beyond cookies. So, pastries? I asked. He was satisfied with this, hence the name. I thought it was really cute of him, gotta say) is not too soft and not too crunchy rather firm enough to hold the filling and yet break apart nicely in your mouth. It has a tender consistency even though there’s no egg yolk in it. This can be made either in a mixer or food processor. I confess, I went with the processor since it’s so quick and to me easier. And after you scoop out all the dough, you can combine the jam filling in the same unwashed bowl of the processor. One stop baking, so to speak. So haul out your food processor and into it place your flour, (flour first so the butter/marg won’t stick to the blades), sugar, baking powder, salt and give a whirl then add the cubed marg/butter and with on/off pulses, cut it into the flour till crumbs form.

Then add the water and vanilla and process again just till a nice ball of dough forms. Do not over process.

It should be a nice medium soft dough to work with, not too sticky. Set dough aside covering with plastic wrap to rest. You can refrigerate at this point if you aren’t ready to make the swirls but otherwise, you don’t need to refrigerate and wait.

Preheat your oven to 350 F.

Next prepare the filling. This is three ingredients. Chopped pecans, jam and the breadcrumbs. So I took a cup of whole pecans, chopped them in the processor (not too fine) and plunked the jam in there with it.

Pulse together and add the breadcrumbs and you get a nice thick filling that looks like so:

You can let the filling sit there while you prepare the dough. It will absorb the breadcrumbs more and thicken a drop more.

Next, take out a silicone mat or some parchment paper to roll the dough out. Sprinkle the mat/paper with flour or powdered sugar. Since the dough isn’t crazy sweet, you can use the sugar, especially if like me, you use the naturally sweetened jam (not with artificial sweetener, just natural. It’s sweet but not too). Cut dough into three parts and roll out one into a rectangle.

Now scoop 1/3 of the jam mixture and with wild abandon, smear all over the dough, like so:

Note I leave a small edge all around, since when you roll it into a log it will smush the mixture and wind up oozing out if you do it all the way to the end. Isn’t that a pretty color?

Next, roll on the long end into a log.

Once the log is formed, gently lift it onto a baking tray with edges and repeat with the other two pieces of dough and rest of jam mixture.

Then, cut halfway down into the dough at intervals.

Once your logs are all prepared, place them in the preheated oven and bake for 30-40 minutes or until lightly browned.

Remove from oven, cool on wire rack and when cooled completely, sprinkle generously with powdered sugar. Then, cut with a knife at the marked intervals and there you go, your swirl pastries are ready to plate.

Raspberry pecan pastry swirls

Pastry:

2 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup butter/margarine, cut into cubes
1/4 cup cold water
1 teaspoon vanilla

Flour or powdered sugar to sprinkle under dough for rolling
Powdered sugar for sprinkling on pastries when cooled

Filling:

3/4 cup raspberry jam
1 cup chopped pecans
2 rounded tablespoons plain dry unseasoned breadcrumbs

Directions:

I use a food processor for this although you can use a mixer.

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Take the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt and put in the bowl of the food processor. Whirl to mix. Take the cubed marg and put in and pulse just till the dough is coming together, add the water and vanilla and pulse a second or two more till a medium soft dough forms. Set aside under plastic wrap (so it won’t dry out). Make sure you get all the dough bits out of the bowl of the processor since now you will make the jam mixture.

Chop the pecans roughly in the processor and add the jam on top and again briefly process. Lastly add the breadcrumbs (really, do it, it prevents the oozing out of the filling) and process again till thick and smooth, a few pulses is all you need.

Taking a silicone mat or a piece of parchment paper, cut the pastry dough into three equal pieces and sprinkle mat/paper with flour or powdered sugar and roll out one third of the dough into a rectangle. Then take one third of the jam mixture and leaving the edges empty, slather all over the dough. Roll from the long end of the dough into a log and gently lift onto a parchment lined baking tray (preferably with edges). Leave room for the other two logs and simply repeat with the other 2 pieces of dough and jam mixture.

Cut each log halfway down- don’t cut all the way through! – at intervals to prepare the pastries (see pic above). Bake 350 F for 30 -40 minutes till lightly browned and remove and cool on wire racks. When fully cooled, sprinkle generously with powdered sugar and cut through all the way and your pastries are ready.