As I had messed up and forgotten to make Mary's parkin ready for Bonfire night, I had a panic stricken search through the Baking Bible to see if I could find any other recipes which could take its place. Now I realize that there is no comparison between a slice of darkly spiced parkin and a pinwheel biscuit. However, Mary mentions that these biscuits are good fun for bonfire night. Well, what more of a reason did I need! Sadly my little boy is too young to help as suggested; he would no doubt force fistfuls of uncooked dough into his mouth and be promptly sick! This was not really what I had in mind.
We had spent the day at Neil's parents’ house so didn't get home till after 6pm. I was so stuffed from all the lovely food which had been made for us, I didn't feel like getting on with the baking as soon as we walked in the front door. Sitting down with a full and satisfied stomach was a fatal error. By the time, I made a start, it had already gone 8pm; I always leave things to the last minute!
First of all, I had to whack the butter in the microwave to soften it for a few seconds, not the best start! I needed to make two separate doughs, one vanilla and one chocolate. I started off with the vanilla. I placed the butter into the bowl followed by a little sugar. As I had to add some cornflour I imagined that these biscuits would melt in the mouth. I measured the plain flour on top of the cornflour. I tipped it in a little too eagerly and added what I thought to be too much. I painstakingly picked it out, careful not to pick out the cornflour with it. It took me ages, only to find when re-checking the recipe that it was supposed to be what I'd put in in the first place. I just had to add it straight back! I now needed to add one egg and then mix it all together. It quickly became clear that the mixture was much too loose, I had formed a paste! Mary says to knead the 'dough' and later on it would have to be rolled out – eeek! The only answer was to add more flour; I added until the mixture firmed up and turned into a soft dough. I wrapped the dough in cling film and placed it in the fridge as instructed. Next, I had to move on to making the chocolate dough. I made it exactly as before but also added cocoa powder. This time I placed my bowl on the scales to see how much more flour I needed. I also added a little extra cocoa powder to balance out the additional flour. It turned out that I needed an extra 50g in total; I had to assume that the recipe was wrong. I wrapped the chocolatey dough in cling film and then put it in the fridge to join its vanilla companion. After the half an hour in the fridge, I had to roll each ball of dough out to an oblong shape; I couldn't find a ruler so guessed on the size! The dough wasn't as sticky as I expected and was very easy to roll out. I placed the vanilla strip on top of the chocolate and then rolled the two up together. My sausage of dough was rather long so Neil held one end, while I took the other. We manoeuvred it carefully into the fridge to chill for yet another half an hour. I didn't realize when I started just how long these biscuits would take to make – I couldn't stop yawning!
The dough had firmed quite a bit by the time the chilling time was up, so I was able to manage extracting it from the fridge on my own!! I unwrapped it and sliced the sausage of dough into 20 rather thick circles. They did look the part and I felt proud of my little uncooked pinwheels. I placed two trays of biscuits into the oven. I found they required closer to half an hour rather than the suggested 20 minutes. They puffed up a little in the heat of the oven but, other than that, looked pretty much the same as when they had gone in. I took the biscuits straight off the baking trays and put them onto the waiting wire racks. After they had cooled on the racks, Neil and I had a pinwheel biscuit each. It might have been almost 10pm but it was still Bonfire Night!! I have to say neither of us were overcome by these pretty little biscuits. Neil was confused as he didn't feel sure if it was a biscuit or a cake! It was true that the texture was almost cake like. They also tasted a little dry. Maybe I had added too much flour; should I have upped the cornflour too? Although they looked good and I am sure they would appeal to children, the flavor just wasn't there. This could well be down to a mistake with the recipe.
Not my favorite biscuit! :-(