Hamburger Pinwheels

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Hamburger Pinwheels adapted from Hillbilly Housewife

Dough:

• 3 cups flour
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 1 cup milk (or a little less) (my notes: needed more milk to keep it stuck together)

     Filling:

• 1 pound ground beef (see note below about taco seasoning)
• 1 small onion, chopped
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon pepper
• 1/2 cup milk

 

“I usually make the filling first, so it has a chance to cool down. Fry the hamburger in a skillet until it is crumbled into small pieces, and grey all over. Cook the onion with it if you like (I always do). Drain or spoon off some of the fat. Don't get rid of all of the fat. You need some of it to absorb the flour.(Save at least 2-3 Tablespoons) So after you have spooned off most of the fat, add the flour, salt and pepper. Stir it up until the flour is dissolved in the fat. Add the milk and continue stirring until the mixture thickens considerably, and boils. Boil for a minute and remove the filling from the heat. If you want to cool it down quickly, transfer the filling to a bowl and put it into the fridge or freezer while you prepare the dough. This is what I usually do. It also gives me a chance to wash the skillet before anything sticks to it unmercifully.

To make the dough, get out a big bowl. In it combine the flour, salt and baking powder. Add the shortening. Use your fingers or a fork to mash in the shortening until the mixture is crumbly. Stir in the milk, forming a nice, slightly stiff dough. Knead it about 8 or ten times to get the gluten in the flour activated a little bit. Rip a piece of waxed paper off of the roll. Place it on your counter and pat the dough into a thick rectangle on top of it. Use a rolling pin or sturdy jar to roll the dough out into a big rectangle, about 1/2 an inch thick, or a little thinner. 

Spread the cool filling onto the dough, like spreading butter on bread. Spread it to within 3/4" of the edges. It is good to cool the filling down because hot filling is challenging to work with. Warm filling is acceptable. Now, using the waxed paper to help, roll the dough up like a jelly roll, peeling back the waxed paper as you roll. Form a long cylinder of dough and filling swirled together. Toss the waxed paper in the garbage. Slice the roll with a sharp knife into 12 or 15 pieces. Lay the pieces on an oiled cookie sheet, rearranging them slightly so they are pretty and pinwheel shaped if necessary. Bake at 425° for about 20 minutes. These are good served with Italian Tomato Sauce or canned tomato sauce, or Cheese Sauce or Tomato Gravy or even plain old ketchup. I like them with steamed broccoli and carrot raisin salad, and macaroni and cheese. Kids like these pretty well.”

 

So I made these this evening and I will add some of my notes/thoughts here with some pictures for those that find it easier seeing the process so that they can compare that there stuff looks like the picture thus giving confidence that they are doing the recipe the right way…at least that is how it goes in my head when I look at pictures!!

And before I go any further….DISCLAIMER….I am a Stay At Home Mom…I homeschool, I raise six children, I love to cook, I really love to share recipes, I like to take pictures….HOWEVER, I am NOT a professional photographer….gasp….so you get the occasional over saturated photo’s, you get the slightly blurry pictures, you get stuff in the backgrounds…because that’s how it is at this house…and I am not doing this because I want to become the next greatest Foodie Blogger….uh NO…I really really love to cook and I love to share recipes…well except the four that are in the family vault…lol…and I want to encourage others who might want to cook to see how easy it is and to not be intimidated….I like tasty food that doesn’t take forever to fix….and so those last comments also sum up the perception that some might have that all those who post cooking recipes on their blog are “showing off” and have the attitude of “oh look at me and look what I did today”….that is not me and if you know me in real life I sure hope you know that image doesn’t go with who I am…. If I can inspire someone to become a better cook or to experiment more often with different foods and in the process they become a better homemaker in the cooking department then Praise the Lord that it worked out that way…its not about me….ok end of the Disclaimer!!

Ok back on track… So the first part, brown the meat, drain, mix in the flour…at this point I usually add about a Tablespoon of Mexican Seasoning, you can either use a homemade mix or buy one of those seasoning packets from McCormick.  I just happen to like the extra kick it has but not overly spicy.

The consistency is somewhat paste-like from the thickening brought about by the flour and milk and as you can see by my picture….I forgot the onion tonight…I was in a rush for Wednesday night Kings Kids at church and didn’t realize it until the meat was already browned…it’s ok though it still came out really tasty.

Then the dough part…

This is what it looks like when rolled out and I would guess this was about 16” high by about 24” wide.  Here is a picture of the thickness up close.

Pretty thin, less than a 1/2” in thickness.

The next step would be to spread the meat mixture onto the dough.

Now I believe in putting the mixture right up close to the edge closest to you (the edge of the counter) the reason being this is going to be the center of the pinwheel so I don’t want it to be just dough, I want it to be nice and meaty all the way through.  Just an extra tip there.  Now I usually like to use an icing spatula to spread the mixture and since that was used to scrape play dough off the counter this afternoon it wasn’t available.  The next best option is the back side of a large soup spoon, or you could use a knife you use to spread jelly with on bread….you get the idea….  mash it down.

The pointer about letting your meat mixture cool is important, otherwise your dough gets soggy and that creates a mess on the counter. I usually make mine, put it in a glass bowl and pop it in the freezer.  The freezer will cool it down but not freeze it in the time it takes to roll out the dough and you will be set to go.

Now for the rolling up, start at the long edge closest to you and roll it all the way up and then slice it into about 1/2” slices….

 

Those little dimples on top..those are just from me holding it steady while slicing through, make sure you flour your knife about every two cuts to keep it going smoothly and not tearing the roll apart.  Place them on a cookie sheet, I actually don’t spray my sheet pan and have not had any issues with it sticking so try it both ways and pick the best for you.

  So here we have fresh out of the oven, lightly browned.  I had approximately 30 slices out of the roll.  I have served these with a brown gravy in the past as my husband liked that option.  However, the favored sauce is actually ketchup as seen this evening.

  Enjoy and if you give it a try pop back over and let me know.