Chocolate-Vanilla Pinwheel Cookies
Ingredients:

4 1/2 teaspoons butter , melted
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup cocoa
1/2 cup butter, at room temperature

Directions:
WARNING: this needs to be done the day before you want to bake the cookies.
In a large bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla. Beat until fluffy. In a medium sized bowl, combine flour, baking powder and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, combine thoroughly. Remove half the dough to medium bowl. Add cocoa and melted butter to remaining dough. Mix thoroughly. Divide the dough in half. Divide the vanilla dough in half as well. You should now have 4 sets of dough, two vanilla and two chocolate. Dough should be firm. If not, refrigerate ½- 1 hour until firm. Sandwiched between 2 pieces of wax paper, roll one portion vanilla dough into 8-inch square. Repeat procedure with one portion chocolate dough. If the dough is warm and soft, you may need to chill it again at this point. Remove top sheets of wax paper; invert vanilla dough onto chocolate dough. Remove the top sheet of wax paper. Roll carefully. Wrap in wax paper. Repeat procedure with remaining dough. Refrigerate over night.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Cut rolls into 1/4-inch slices; place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 6-7 minutes or until just set. Careful, the cookies do not brown on top and it is difficult to visually tell if they are done. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. Cool completely.

My thoughts:
I came up with this recipe for a cookie swap I am hosting tomorrow. They are pretty easy to make but the dough is really soft. My husband and I ended up having to refrigerate it in between each step and it was still tricky to roll the two doughs together without ripping. We also made a double batch so that slowed us down as well, we had twice as much dough to work with than the recipe I posted here. It wasn’t a difficult cookie to make but we were left with a lot of “down time” waiting for the dough to cool down between each step. All in all, they turned out very well, not too difficult and very chocolatey. I am happy my first refrigerator cookie recipe turned out so well. I have always been interested in refrigerator cookies but I had never made some myself.