Chocolate Peanut Butter Pinwheel Cookies: Because Car Accidents Suck

There are two important facts you should know before you read this post.

First, car accidents suck.

Second, I am only capable of doing one thing to help people who have hit rough times. That one thing is baking for them.

These peanut butter-chocolate pinwheel cookies are a testament to those facts. My friend got in a car accident. She’s OK, but was understandably quite mentally shaken. I understand that, because about six years ago, I was driving from New Mexico to DC and was delayed when a loading ramp flew into my car.

I still have that car. But it was a rough experience, and I sure could have used some cookies. Cookies like these peanut-butter chocolate pinwheel cookies. So if you have a friend who gets into a car accident and escapes physically unharmed but needs a pick-me up, here’s the recipe you need.

Chocolate Layer Ingredients (as adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/3 cups sugar
1 egg, beaten and divided
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4c unsweetened cocoa (Scharffen Berger)

Whisk dry flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl, set aside. Mix butter and sugar in a mixer set to medium speed until fluffy, slowly add half the beaten egg until well combined, then add the vanilla and cocoa powder and mix until uniform. Gradually add flour mixture and mix until smooth.

In case you didn’t recognize it, this is very similar to the dough for the very-delicious brownie roll-out cookies. To prepare the dough to become pinwheel cookies, roll it about 1/8” thick using Gail’s trick of rolling the dough between two sheets of parchment paper.

Let this layer, should be about 8 ½”x13”, chill in the refrigerator. Then get to work on the peanut butter layer.

Peanut Butter Layer Ingredients (as loosely inspired by Smitten Kitchen)

1 1/4 cups flour

1/4 tsp salt

¼ tsp baking powder

4 tablespoons butter, softened

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter

1/3 cup sugar

Reserved beaten egg from chocolate layer

¼ teaspoon vanilla

Whisk dry flour, salt, and baking powder in a bowl, set aside. Mix butter, peanut butter, and sugar in a mixer set to medium speed until fluffy, slowly add half the beaten egg until well combined, then add the vanilla and mix until uniform. Gradually add flour mixture and mix until smooth.

More rolling.

And measuring to make sure they layers were fairly evenly matched. Once you’ve done that, place the chocolate layer on top of the peanut butter layer, parchment side up, and remove the parchment paper.

As you can see, it’s hard to make the layers perfectly matched in size, but you can squeeze at the edges to improve the situation.

Press down on the chocolate layer to adhere the layers together, and chill in the refrigerator for about five minutes. Working from one of the long edges, roll the dough into a cylinder.

Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and freeze for one hour. Remove from the freezer, and cut into ¼” discs.

Bake dough on parchment-lined sheets at 350° F for 13-15 minutes. Cool (briefly) before eating.

Delicious chocolate and peanut butter in beautiful pinwheel form. It would have cheered me up after I drove from Tucumcari, NM to Washington, DC with my car like this.

Have you ever baked for somebody after they had a car accident? What did you make them?