jam pinwheels

When I was younger, my father used to take my family to Changi Village for a drive after dinner. In the old days, Changi Village was a rustic little suburb where one could still find houses with colonial design and life seemed to be slower than the metropolitan parts of Singapore. I remember that we would always make a detour to the 7-Eleven at Changi Village where we would buy Mr Softee (which is soft frozen ice-cream) and Chinese pinwheels (a type of two-toned crunchy biscuit that looks like what you see in the photographs in this post but do not contain any filling) or "ear biscuits" (I am not sure what the actual name of the "ear biscuits" is but my brothers and I called them as such because they were shaped in like one's ears). The Chinese pinwheels or "ear biscuits" were dipped into the Mr Softee before we ate them. Delicious!

I was inspired by the Chinese pinwheels when I baked the jam pinwheels. However, unlike Chinese pinwheels which are crunchy in texture, I decided to give the jam pinwheels a "melt in the mouth" texture. If you prefer that the pinwheels be more crunchy in texture, you can substitute the icing sugar with castor sugar.

This is quite an easy recipe to follow. The main thing that you need to take note of is to be gentle and slow when you roll up the dough, otherwise the dough may tear and you would end up with jam on your fingers.

INGREDIENTS

180g plain flour
1 tbsp custard powder
125g butter (softened)
15g icing sugar
1/2 egg yolk
jam

METHOD

1. Sift the plain flour and custard powder.

2. Mix the butter, icing sugar and egg yolk in a mixing bowl using an electric mixer.

3. Fold in the flour mixture using a wooden spatula and mix until a dough forms.

4. Place the dough in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to firm up the dough.

5. Roll out the dough into a rectangle. Spread the jam on the rolled out dough and roll up the dough. Using a sharp knife, cut the dough into cross-sections.

6. Place the dough (cross-section facing upwards) on a baking tray that has been lined with baking paper.

7. Bake in an oven preheated to 180 degrees celsius for 15 minutes or until the jam pinwheels are golden brown.

8. Let the jam pinwheels cool thoroughly before storing them in an air-tight container.