Send your croissants to Flavour City
If you’re not sure what pinwheels are in a food context, it’s okay; you’re not the only one. Basically, pinwheels are a pastry rolled around some other ingredients, usually a spread of some kind, cut into “pinwheel shapes,” and then baked.
Although this pinwheel recipe uses pesto and marble cheddar, it can be customized a hundred times over. You can use different flavours of pesto and cheese; add bacon bits; replace the pesto with tomato sauce for a pizza style one; use salsa, jalapenos, and cheese for a Tex-Mex spin—I think you get the point. As long as your ingredients aren’t too watery and will hold up well under oven temperatures, try them out.
Ingredients
Tube of croissants or equivalent pastry dough; I used Pillsbury crescent roll dough
Basil pesto
Marble cheddar; grated
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. Unroll the crescent roll dough on a clean counter.
3. Using your fingers, seal the diagonal perforations together so you are left with four small rectangles.
4. Spread a small spoon of pesto on each square. Don’t overdo it with the pesto; you just want a thin layer.
5. Sprinkle lightly with cheese (I agree that more cheese is generally better, but, in this case, if you put too much it’ll melt all over the place and your pinwheels will look like they belong in a Dali painting).
6. Roll each rectangle (not at the corners) and then seal the end into the roll so it won’t unravel. You are rolling the “width” side of the rectangle so your rolls are shorter in length.
7. Place the roll on a cutting board and, with a knife, put a mark where you estimate halfway to be; this will help you cut the roll into six equal pieces.
8. Place on a baking sheet (note: I lined mine with aluminum foil, but it’s better not to because separating the melted cheese from the foil is not fun).
9. Bake until the bottoms are golden. In my oven it took around 12 minutes. Keep in mind that the timing on the rolls’ packaging almost always ends up burning the bottoms so your best bet is to keep an eye on the oven the first time you bake pinwheels and remember that time for the future.
Enjoy as an appetizer, snack, or with some soup to make your pinwheels into a meal.
Photos by Mirali Almaula/The Ontarion.