What Makes These Cookies Special
Aside from the eye appeal of these festive cookies, they are easy to make and so delicious. With no dough-chilling required and lots of ways to make them extra festive, this is a great cookie recipe to make with your kids, enjoy around the holidays, or give as gifts. Made into fun shapes with a cookie press, the buttery dough is flavored with almond and vanilla. All of these components make this the best spritz cookie recipe. These cookies look absolutely gorgeous, but they couldn’t be easier to make. Don’t miss all our tips and tricks to make these amazing classic cookies. Recipe from Wilton
Combine dry ingredients. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and set aside. Cream sugar and butter. In a large bowl with a hand mixer or in the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in the egg, then the milk, and then add in the vanilla and the almond extract. Add the flour mixture. Combine the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and mix just until they are combined. Press the cookies. Fill the barrel of the cookie press with the cookie dough. Press into cookies onto the rimmed ungreased cookie sheet. Bake the cookies. Bake until the edges of the cookies are golden brown.
When pressing your cookies, it is important that you press them onto an ungreased, unlined, cold baking sheet. You want the dough to come out of the press and stick to the cookie sheet so that it doesn’t get stuck in the press.
Measure your flour correctly. Since this is such a crucial part of any baking recipe, it has its own section below. Don’t overmix the dough. When you combine the wet and dry ingredients, it is important to mix them just until they are combined. Start with the mixer on very low, then once you are able, turn it up all the way until the flour is just combined. The goal is to combine the flour mixture without over-mixing it, so mixing for the minimal amount of time is what you want to do. Make sure your baking powder is fresh. Baking powder should be replaced every six months so that it is fresh. Test the freshness of your baking powder by mixing a little bit with some water. It should bubble up right away. If it doesn’t you should buy new baking powder for this recipe. Use room-temperature butter. If your butter is too hard, it won’t whip together with the sugar. It should be soft enough that you can dent it with your finger, but not be able to push it all the way through. To do this quickly, cut the butter into one-inch pieces and let them sit on the counter for 30 minutes. I do not recommend microwaving it. Do not grease your cookie sheet. This is such a key point of this recipe. If you grease your sheet pan or use parchment paper, the dough will not stick to it and won’t release from the cookie press.
Start by whisking the flour in the container or bag it’s stored in. Use a spoon to scoop the flour from its container into a dry measuring cup. Do not use the measuring cup to scoop it from the container or it will pack, resulting in more flour than what you need. Use the flat edge of a spatula to level off any extra flour.
Make colored spritz cookies. This is a fun way to make your tree-shaped cookies green, etc. If you want to make all of the cookies the same color, add a few drops of food coloring to your dough when you add the flavored extracts. If you only want to color some of them or use different colors, mix all of the dough as the recipe says and then divide it into a separate bowl for each color. One or two drops of food coloring are plenty to color the dough. Add sprinkles: Adding colored sprinkles, nonpareils, or sugar is another way to dress up these cookies! Add them right after your cookies come out of the oven. Chocolate drizzle: Once the cookies have been baked and cooled, drizzle melted chocolate over them. Either milk chocolate or white chocolate (or even candy melts!) would be amazing on these.
Once baked, spritz cookies can be kept in an airtight container at room temperature for up to two weeks. If you want to make them further in advance than that, see my tips below for freezing them.
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