Rainbow Swirl Cookies!

Hiya guys! Happy Saturday morning! Truly the best part of any weekend I think :o) During the week I had a bit of fun and created RAINBOW cookies!! They sort of make me think of Hypno-Toad from Futurama... Hypno-Cookies? ;o)

INGREDIENTS

• 150g unsalted butter, at room temperature (nice and soft!)
• 3/4 cup caster sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 egg
• 1½ cups plain flour

OTHER STUFF YOU'LL NEED FOR THIS BIT 

• 1 x mixing bowl
• An electric beater
• A flour sifter
• A wooden spoon
• 4 x brekky bowls (or four small bowls)
• Cling wrap
• Extra flour for kneading/rolling etc
• Four colours of food colouring (I'm using yellow, green, blue and red).
• A large cutting board or flat (CLEAN!) bench surface

It will also help if you have a kitchen sink full of warm water ready to rinse your hands in as you go....

MAKING YOUR BISCUIT DOUGH
In a mixing bowl  place your softened butter and sugar and using an electric beater, beat butter and sugar together until it looks light and fluffy! Add in your egg and vanilla and beat it all together so everything is all mixed in. Sift your flour into the big bowl with the butter. Using a wooden spoon, mix in the flour until it's mostly combined (just so the flour and butter mixture is stuck together)

COLOURING YOUR DOUGH!

Take 4 brekky bowls, and divide your mixture evenly between each bowl. Pour a little flour onto your flat surface then tip the mix from one bowl onto your bench and knead it until it forms a soft dough.

Poke your finger into the dough to make a small hole and add in 5-7 drops of your first colour. This is the fun part.... put a little flour on your hands and squish your dough between your hands (like playdough!!) until all the colouring is mixed into the cookie dough!

Next take some cling wrap and tightly wrap up your ball of dough.

Repeat this process for the other 3 other bowls of cookie dough mixing in a new colour to each batch.
Place all your wrapped up balls of dough into the freezer for 10-15 minutes until it firms up enough to roll out. You could put it in the fridge but I find it takes a little long that way... the freezer is much quicker! Just be sure to set a timer so you don't forget about them! You don't wanna do that, trust me hehe!

WHAT YOU'LL NEED FOR THE NEXT STEP

• Baking paper or Greaseproof paper
• A rolling pin
• Extra flour for kneading/rolling etc

Preheat oven to 160 degrees (Celsius guys!!)

For the next bit, before taking the dough of the fridge, make sure you have your rolling pin handy, a bit of extra flour for rolling and a large sheet of baking paper.

Take your dough balls from the freezer. Unwrap one and sqeeze it a little between your hands to re-soften it just a little bit. Roll out one colour on your floured surface about 1/4cm thick.

Repeat with the other three colours. As you roll each piece out, lay it on top of the last cookie dough sheet on the baking paper til you have a flat stack of coloured doughs. Using the rolling pin, roll over the layers a few times to get them firmly pressed together. Place in the fridge for 10 minutes to let it firm up a bit.

ROLLING UP AND BAKING YOUR COOKIES!
Take out the sheet of dough from the fridge and using a sharp knife trim up the layers into a rectangle.

Starting at one end, begin to tightly roll up the layers til you end up with a big coloured rolled up sausage of cookie dough! Roll up the cookie sausage in cling wrap tightly and pop in the fridge for 5 minutes. Unwrap the dough and using a sharp knife, cut off slices about 1/2cm thick and place slices onto the baking tray.

Bake cookies for 20 minutes. The cookies won't brown and they will be very soft when you take the out at the end of baking time, that's perfectly fine! They will harden up as they cool :o) Leave them on the baking tray a little while before using a spatula to transfer them to a wire rack to finish cooling completely! And guess what? We're done!!