If you’re in a ‘carnival mood’, you’ll agree with me that these puff pastry pinwheels are perfect, right?
Colorful, spectacular, VERY EASY, and loved by both adults and children! Besides being so cute, they are also very tasty, like all puff pastry treats after all 😉
Almost essential for Carnival parties, puff pastry pinwheels are obviously also suitable for your kids’ birthday buffets, you’ll see how amazed they will be.
Below you will find the procedure to make them in just a few minutes, following the step-by-step photos.
Here are some other recipes of mine suitable for Carnival:
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Very cheap
- Preparation time: 7 Minutes
- Portions: 12 pinwheels
- Cooking methods: Oven
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: Carnival, All seasons
Ingredients for the PUFF PASTRY PINWHEELS
- 1 roll puff pastry (rectangular)
- as needed smarties
- as needed colored sugar sprinkles
- as needed milk (a splash, to brush the surface)
- as needed Nutella®
Tools
- Baking tray oven
- Pizza cutter wheel
- Brush silicone
Steps to make the PUFF PASTRY PINWHEELS
Unroll the puff pastry (which must be very cold, mind you) on your work surface, keeping its baking paper underneath.
Divide it, using a pizza cutter or a smooth-edged knife, into twelve parts.
Then, still with the cutter, score the diagonals of the quadrilaterals, keeping a small central part intact, which will be, to be clear, the center of your pinwheels.
At this point, you can choose to add a small amount of Nutella on the two small blades that will be closed, or leave them empty.
Fold towards the center, as you see in the photo, four points of the total eight, applying slight pressure at the center to ensure they don’t rise during baking.
Bake them in a preheated fan oven at 356°F for about 12 minutes, or until the pastry is nicely golden.
Once cooled, place a smarties in the center of each pinwheel, using a tiny amount of Nutella to help them adhere better to the pastry.
Serve them and… enjoy! 😉
Tips and Variations
You can fill the ‘closed parts’ of your pinwheels with any cream you prefer: hazelnut cream, pistachio cream, or even custard.
Obviously, instead of colored sugar sprinkles, you can use any other colored edible decoration you like (such as colored pearls) or omit them and, once baked, sprinkle the pinwheels with plenty of powdered sugar.
Since it’s puff pastry, I recommend making the pinwheels on the same day you plan to serve them, or they will lose their crunchiness and fragrance.

