This recipe was originally published on December 16, 2011. The following story was written in 2011. Facebook | Pinterest | Instagram We have this argument every year. I think Eric must like stale cookies or something. But I won. Besides cookies, here’s what was inside: We have the most awesome friends ever. Who else gives you homemade pillows for Christmas that feature your favorite poets? Eric has a man-crush on Bono and I took an American Gothic Literature course in college, where I fell in love with Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories. Sarah and I were roommates in college. (So were Brian and Eric, actually.) It was not love at first sight; the first time Sarah and I met was in our dorm room which she had already decorated with anime and “make love not war” posters. Later she told me that I came in with my snappy blonde hair, talking on my cell phone nonstop and saying “like” all the time, and she pretty much decided to hate me right then and there. UPDATE 2020: Sarah and I, (15 years, 9 children, and too many moves to count later) are still best friends. You don’t just drop somebody after they make you a pillow like that. I have takenthe Q-tipsthat were inthe medicine cabinet and whichyou were probablysavingfor your ears. Forgive methey were perfectso whiteand so fuzzy. Friends who know you well enough to appreciate your weird Q-tip poems and make you Bono pillows are just the best thing ever, aren’t they? We call Spritz a traditional Swedish recipe because we got it from Eric’s great grandmother Prudy, who was Swedish. But it also has German roots, and I suspect many other Scandinavian countries claim it as well. “Spritzen” in German means “to squirt,” so spritz cookies literally means squirt cookies. Because you squirt them out of the cookie press onto the pan. Isn’t that the most adorable thing you’ve ever heard?? They are buttery. They are sweet. They have amazing almond flavor. They are tiny. And this means you can eat about 10 before you even know what happened. You have to try them! During my testing for this post, I decided I wanted to try a new cookie press to see if I could get one that better controls how much dough is released when you press. I bought this Oxo brand cookie press ($32) at Bed Bath and Beyond (pictured above) and am pleased with it. It’s a little sleeker and easier to use than the metal one. It doesn’t have quite the level of control I was hoping for, but it is easier to use than the metal one. I’m happy with it and recommend it. Good news, the plates (the discs that have the shapes on them) from the metal press fit the new Oxo press just fine! So now I have double the shapes. If you are looking for the king of cookie presses that will stand the test of time (like if you plan to make it an heirloom), try the Marcato Cookie Press. It’s pricey but has very high reviews. All metal parts means it’s not going to snap in half anytime soon.
Preheat the oven. Beat the butteruntil smooth, then beat in sugar and salt. Beat in the egg and almond extract, and food coloring (if using). Mix in the flour until just combined. Press cookies onto chilled cookie sheets. Bake and cool your spritz cookies. Decorate with glaze and sprinkles as desired.
This is one of the most simple cookie doughs you will ever make. 6 ingredients and you don’t even have to chill it (in fact, you shouldn’t chill! The dough won’t make it through the press if it’s cold). It’s just like any other cookie dough: Beat the chilled butter til smooth. (I like to use chilled butter in my stand mixer. It makes for the perfect temperature dough. If you only have a hand mixer, you will need to soften your butter on the counter for a few minutes.) Cream the butter and sugar together. (Don’t add cream!! “To cream” means to beat, I have gotten this question so often lately!) Add in the salt, eggs, and almond extract. At this point, you can add in some gel food coloring if you want! Don’t use liquid food coloring. It will mess with the liquid ratio of the recipe. I usually only do green to make green trees and green wreaths. You can try red, but it might end up looking pink. The sky is the limit! I like to add the gel food coloring before I add the flour, to make sure that I don’t over beat the flour. Over mixing is how you get a tough dough and dense cookies. So when you are adding food coloring to the butter mixture, add enough so that when you add in the flour, the color won’t be drowned out. I added at least 1/4 teaspoon gel to a full batch. Next add in the flour. The dough is pretty sticky. That’s okay! Use your hands to shape the dough into a cylinder and feed it into the tube of your cookie press.
How to use a Cookie Press
Here’s how to press your spritz cookies perfectly every time.
Use your hands to shape the dough into a cylinder and feed it into the tube of your cookie press. Press the cookies onto a chilled baking sheet. Chilled I say!! Don’t use parchment paper, silicone mats, or anything else that would come between the baking sheet and the spritz dough. Press as little dough through the cookie press as possible to create the spritz shape – they’ll look much nicer after baking this way.
I prefer to add the sprinkles after baking, using a simple glaze to make them adhere. Just mix together powdered sugar with some corn syrup, almond extract, and milk. (You can omit the corn syrup; it just makes the glaze nice and shiny.) Whisk it all together and play around with the milk/powdered sugar levels until you get a glaze consistency you like. These are not sugar cookies; the glaze should not harden into a white frosting. We basically just want glue for the sprinkles. Here is what mine looked like: Use a pastry brush to lightly brush the top of each cookie with the glaze, and then use your fingers to dust some sprinkles on top. I tried dipping the cookies in sprinkles. Here’s what it looks like. Kind of an intense sprinkle situation, but it has a nice effect if you do a few like this and disperse them on a larger plate of cookies. Another note on glaze: You don’t have to make any glaze at all if you don’t want to. You can brush the cookies very lightly with water and then dust with sprinkles. They will stick. You can also brush with straight up corn syrup (see above) and then add sprinkles. This is a really simple way to get a shinier look for your cookies without bothering with a glaze. (They take much longer to set though.)
You added too much flour. I always use the “fluff and scoop” method: fluff up the flour in your bag or container, then use a spoon to scoop it into the measuring cup. Gently level it. It’s amazing what a difference the right amount of flour makes. You chilled the dough. Don’t chill the dough! Don’t do it! You’ll only want to curse the heavens and die if you’re trying to squeeze rock hard dough out of your cookie press. Your baking sheets aren’t chilled. If the dough is coming out of the press, but not creating a tidy little cookie on the baking sheet, you need to chill the pans. I know it’s an extra step but it’s worth it! (And remember – no parchment or silicone mats. Those cookies have plenty o’ butter, they’ll come off the baking sheet just fine.)
Do not use parchment paper! Do not use silicone baking mats! I hardly ever make cookies without lining my pans, but it’s totally unnecessary for these Spritz cookies. The dough just will not stick to a lined pan. And speaking of pans. It’s best to use light colored pans for spritz making. Darker pans will make your spritz cookies brown very quickly, and they will turn out crispier than you want them. If the dough gets too warm (you can tell because the dough will feel a little greasy and melty), the cookies will bake flatter than you want. Stick the dough in the fridge or freezer for a few minutes to firm it up. Not too long though! Chilled dough will not go through the press. They both look nice. But the cookie on the left is prettier. This can be hard to control, and some cookie presses are better than others. I just wanted you to be aware of HOW to achieve the proper shape: press less dough. Bake the cookies for 5-7 minutes. Do NOT let them brown! They should be firm on the edges but should not brown on the edges, or if they do it should be a very light golden. (My dear mother-in-law Kris loves crispy cookies and will fight me on this until her dying day.) Either way you bake them, they are going to be delicious! And that is everything you need to know to make the best Spritz cookies of your life! This is such a fond tradition in our family. I know Grandma Prudy is smiling down on us whenever we bust out the cookie press. Merry Christmas my friends, and merry spritz making too! And just for posterity’s sake, here is the original photo I took of these Spritz cookies when I first made and shot them back in 2011! Good times. Bad camera.
