Editor's January Pick #3 - Let's Make Afters

Editor's note: Some of us start January with a fresh outlook on being healthy, but for the rest of us - back to business. This post was written with cooking with kiddies in mind, but even with my "wing and a prayer" approach, I think I could give it a go! After a recent disappointing experience with store-bought cinnamon rolls I believe this recipe is aching for a road test to prove that if you want something doing right, do it yourself!

Lets make afters

My first “afters” offering in “get them hooked on cooking” is Pinwheels. Once again minimum work in the way of prep for the supervisor, only a few minutes and the night before works well for me! No stress and maximum fun for the budding chefs.

Pinwheels

1 sheet of frozen puff pastry, thawed in fridge (375g)

15g butter, melted

50g dark chocolate drops (or finely chopped)

25g ground almonds

25g dried cherries, finely chopped

25g craisins, finely chopped

1 egg, lightly beaten with 1 tbsp milk

Preheat your oven 180c fan/200c/Gas 6. Line a baking tray with greaseproof paper or similar. Unroll the pastry sheet and lay with the short sides left and right, you are going to roll to form a log.

Brush the surface of the pastry and melted butter then scatter the chocolate and ground almonds leaving a border at the top end of the pastry to enable you to “glue” the log when rolled. Then scatter the cherries and craisins over the chocolate and almonds. Carefully roll up from one of the shortest sides as tightly as you can forming a log.

Using a sharp knife, cut the log into 12 even slices. Place on the baking tray and brush with the remaining butter, then the beaten egg mixture. Bake for 15-20 minutes until puffed and golden.

Fondant Glaze

75g icing sugar

2-3 tsps boiling water

Pour the boiling water slowly over the icing sugar in a small bowl while stirring the mixture with a wooden spoon. Pour in only enough water to make a creamy mixture that has the consistency of pancake batter. Cool. You need to make sure the mixture isn't too stiff, you need to be able to drizzle the glaze over your pastries.

Here's some helpful illustrations and the end result.

Take a tip or three :

Use the greaseproof wrapping with the pastry sheet as a base to roll the pinwheels.

Place a damp j cloth on your worktop and then the sheet on top – it will avoid it ending up on the floor!

When you get to the stage of slicing into 12 portions mark the roll in the middle, and then each half again (i.e. quarters) and then divide each quarter into 3 – there's a fighting chance of reasonably even pinwheels.

I warn you – these will vanish at the speed of light – it's a good idea to have two batches 1 x 2 kids.