Spring has finally arrived, but due to the 40-degree temperature on the thermometer, some of us are still dealing with the winter blues. Never fear, we’ve got just the activity to insert a little spring cheer into everyone’s lives: baking! Author Marian Keyes introduces plenty of delicious recipes and describes how baking saved her from depression in her book, “Saved By Cake.” One recipe in particular caught our eye: Lemon Curd and Pistachio Pinwheels. Sound delicious? It’s because they are. Perfect for breakfast or a quick snack, these homemade pastries are sure to put a smile on your face and make you forget about the arctic temperatures outside.
Check out the full recipe featured in “Saved By Cake” below!
Lemon Curd and Pistachio Pinwheels
Ingredients (Makes 16):
1. A packet of 2 sheets of frozen prepared puff pastry, total weight 1 pound.
2. 6 ounces of lemon curd
3. 1 ½ cups pistachios, chopped roughly
Instructions:
1. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and preheat oven to 425 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. Spread half of the lemon curd onto the pastry—it should be a very thin covering, a mere scraping—then scatter over half of the pistachios. Take the short end of the pastry, lift it slightly, and start rolling it inward and over onto itself, as tightly as possible, but not so tightly that the filling starts to squeeze out the sides. (This gets easier with practice, I promise.)
Proceed with patience but confidence, making sure that the rolling is happening evenly across the width of the pastry. Very soon it will all be rolled up and you will have a little log.
3. Repeat the whole process with the second sheet of pastry and the rest of the lemon curd and pistachios.
4. Use a serrated knife to cut each log into eight equal pieces. You might have to dip the knife in water occasionally because the lemon curd filling may stick to it and make the cutting difficult. Carefully lay each pinwheel flat on your baking sheets. Leave plenty of room between them because the pastry will puff and expand.
5. Bake for about 20 minutes. There might be mild filling leakage from some of the pinwheels, but don’t let that bother you. Do watch though that they don’t burn on the bottom.
6. When you take the pinwheels out of the oven, prepare to be amazed. They will look so professional and impressive and totally different from the last time you saw them.
7. Let them stay on their sheets while they cool.
You can recreate this with a million different fillings—morello cherry jam and chopped hazelnuts, for example. Or lime curd—have you ever had the pleasure? Very hard to get hold of, but oh my God, SO delicious, far nicer than lemon, if you ask me—teamed with chopped macadamia nuts. Let your imagination run wild! But never lie about the pastry being store-bought.
