Traditional Spritz Cookies
Cream the butter, sugar, flavorings, and eggs, add the flour, load the cookie press and have at it.
Ingredients
- 8 oz unsalted room temperature butter 2 sticks
- 1 cup granulated sugar (7 oz, or 200 g)
- 1 whole vanilla bean scrape out the seeds, or use 1 tsp vanilla extract.
- 1 tsp salt salt.
- 1 pinch ground cardamom ~ 1/4 tsp. Use more if you really want to taste the cardamom. It's an entirely optional ingredient.
- 1 egg
- 2 1/4 c all-purpose flour, sifted (11 1/2 oz, or 325 g)
- sprinkles, sugar, candied fruits, whatever you want to decorate the cookies with optional, but they do look bland without a little sompin-sompin on top.
Instructions
- Set out 2 sticks of butter to come to room temperature. Speed this process by cutting it into small chunks.
- Set oven rack to middle position and preheat oven to 375.
- Clear space in your refrigerator and chill your clean baking sheets. Prepare a space on your counter with cooling racks.
- Cream together the softened butter, granulated sugar, vanilla, salt, and cardamom. It usually takes more than 5 minutes on high speed for it to get light yellow and creamy/fluffy. Scrape down the sides often. Add the egg and continue to beat for another 5 minutes or so. Scrape down the sides as needed. It will be quite soft and pale yellow.
- Add the flour all at once, and barely mix it in with the mixer. Finish incorporating the flour by hand. Don't make a career out of this. You don't want gluten forming.
- Put the cookie dough into the cookie press and crank out a few practice cookies. Return misshapen cookies to the dough. If the dough gets sticky, put it in the refrigerator for a few minutes.
- Press out the cookies on your bald baking sheets. There's enough butter so they will release. Greasing the baking sheet or using parchment paper will increase the tendency for the cookie to spread out, and these should just grow a taller in the oven, not spread out.
- Sprinkle them robustly with decorations and then bake 5 - 7 minutes. It's fine if they are a little soft when you take them off the cookie sheet. They will harden up and have a firm exterior and soft center. Bake longer for a crispier cookie.
- For doubling the recipe, make two individual batches. You'll need at least three cookie sheets and if it's cold outside, put the cookie sheets outside to cool in between batches. Don't load a warm cookie sheet with fresh dough. Shake/scrape off excess sprinkled decorations from the cookie sheet or the last few rounds will start sticking. I found that baking one cookie sheet at a time allowed me to have one cooling, one baking, and one being loaded. The timer on your phone is indispensable.
Notes
The cookies keep for several days in an airtight container. They are actually better the next day.