Date Pinwheel Cookies - Legacy to Nanny

Nanny made this one when i was a little kid and it was always one of Pops favorites.  And then oddly enough it also happens to be Billy's favorite too.  I guess his 'Grama' made one very similar for him when he was little.   So we have to pass this recipe on.   Until i retired i never made this cookie - i would read the recipe and think "oh this is too daunting, too difficult" and i would put it back in my recipe box and think someday i will do it.  So once i was retired i thought i am going to master this - and what i found out was that it is not really that hard.  It turned out great the first time!!!  I hope you don't wait so long to make it, maybe we need to do it together sometime and it will take your fear away :) 

Ingredients:
1lb or 453 grams of dates
optional - 2/3 cup of finely chopped walnuts (90% of the time i don't add)
1/2 cup white gran sugar
1 cup butter (salted or unsalted both work)
1 cup light brown sugar
1 cup white gran sugar
2 large eggs
2 tsp vanilla
3 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp table salt
waxed paper or parchment paper - 4 pcs - lay these out on the counter about a foot long each
rolling pin (small or large - i just have a cheap wooden one)
cookie sheet (i prefer the Air Bake Insulated 16 x 20 about $20 anywhere)
small amount of Crisco shortening or butter
 
Step 1 -make the date filling on the stove 

• chop 1 lb  (453 grams) of dates - you can get these loose in the bulk store or compressed in the baking section of any grocery store (looks like a brick of dates)  and they will be in grams 

• in a saucepan, put in chopped dates, 1/2 cup white gran. sugar and 1/3 cup of water  and heat on medium till simmering and it becomes soft and thick - if it feels too thick you can add a small amount of water, cool

Step 2 - make the cookie dough, you can do this in a large bowl 

• soften 1 cup of butter (margarine or crisco butter flavoured shortening is just not the same)  if butter is hard out of the fridge i put it in the microwave for 15 seconds - do not let it melt, just needs to be soft 
• cream butter with 1 cup of brown sugar, once mixed to fluffy add 1 cup of white gran sugar and mix till fluffy
• add 1 large egg, mix with beater till its gone then add 1 more large egg and mix till gone
• add 2 tsps vanilla beat in, dough will be quite soft at this point
• now step aside to a clean bowl and add all the dry ingredients together  flour, baking soda and salt - just mix it thoroughly with spatula/spoon 
• go back to the mixing bowl and slowly add the flour about 1/2 cup at a time - i do this with my mixer on low speed, it will become quite thick and almost pull together into a big ball - that's it, you can stop and scrap dough off the mixer and pat it into a ball by hand, don't handle too much though 
• at this point take a knife and cut the ball of dough into 4 pieces
• put one piece of the dough on each piece of waxed or parchment paper 
• flatten with palm of your hand and push into a rectangular shape, just hold your hand on each side and flatten with palm, i just turn the waxed paper as i go till all 4 sides are fairly put into the form
• now you will use your rolling pin to roll out to about a 12 x 10 inch, this does not have to be perfect, you are trying to get the dough evenly thin to about 1/4 inch or less - if your roller gets sticky apply a bit of flour to the roller before you continue to the next sheet - do all 4 rectangles

Step 3 - fill, roll and freeze

• divide the date filling into 4 amounts - it might look like about 1 and 1/2 cups roughly on each sheet of dough - just dump it on each dough sheet , then using a spatula or the flat side of a large spoon smooth it over the cookie dough sheet, you can stay away from the edges by an inch and half (1.5")
• now using the wax/parchment paper you will roll each sheet over onto itself slowly, inching along, the dough will pull away from the paper quite easily and rolls up into a log - then using the wax paper, wrap up each roll and twist the ends and put in freezer - see picture of what each log will look like 
•  let these freeze up a bit for about an hour, take out one at a time as you want to make the batch, if you want to keep them for a week or two just wrap them in another bag to keep the air out

Step 4 - bake

• preheat oven at 375 F 
• if you have a leftover paper bag, tear it apart and spread out on counter for hot cookies to sit on (i even use the inside of my LCBO bags)
• grease cookie sheet  with butter or shortening (i put my hand in a plastic baggy and use about 1 tsp to smear on pan
• take one roll out and unwrap from paper on a cutting board, slice with sharp knife about 1/4 inch thick, each cookie is a spiral
• place cookie dough on sheet about 1/2 inch from each other, they do not spread that much and bake on middle rack of oven for 9 minutes
• remove from oven, let sit about 5 minutes on the pan, then using a thin aluminum spatula remove from cookie sheet one at a time to the paper bag sheet on counter to cool completely before putting in cookie jar
• by now the cookie sheet is cooler and you can regrease it without washing, put another batch on and bake 
• two logs of dough fill my cookie jar