Best Spritz Cookie RecipeSpritzgeback Cookies - Swedish Butter Cookies - Pressed Butter Cookies

By holly

Crisp, fragile, and buttery tasting Spritz Cookies - great for Christmas goodies! What Christmas holiday cookie plate would be complete without these classic Spritz Cookies?
My mother made these every Christmas season since I was little, and I make them now. Spritz cookies are a Christmas tradition in my family.

Ingredients

• 2 cups salted butter
• 1 cup granulated
• sugar
• 2 2
• eggs
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 4 cups sifted all-purpose
• flour
• Assorted food colorings, candies, and/or sprinkles (optional)**

Details

Servings 72
Preparation time 20mins
Cooking time 32mins
Adapted from whatscookingamerica.net

Preparation

Step 1

Preparation:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Refrigerate UNGREASED cookie sheets until ready to use. NOTE: Pressing the dough out onto cool, ungreased baking sheets makes it possible for each application to stick on contact. You will need to clean off the cookie sheets between batches.

In a large bowl, mix butter until creamy. Either use your electric mixer or beat by hand. Gradually add sugar; beating until light and fluffy. Cream the butter and sugar together thoroughly before beating in the egg.

Add eggs and beat well; stir in vanilla extract. Gradually add flour to mixture, beating well after each addition.

The secret lies in the dough, which should be neither too soft nor too firm. It it is too soft, the cookies will have no definition, and if the dough is to firm, the cookies will bake too dry. To test the dough's consistency before baking a batch, press a small amount of dough through the cookie press cylinder.

If the dough is too soft so that it doesn't go through cleanly, chill the dough for about 15 minutes.

If the cookie dough is dry, your spritz will fail. To avoid dry cookie dough, be sure to measure your butter exactly and blend your ingredients together by hand rather than in a mixer. Dry cookie dough won’t flow through the cookie press and if you do happen to get some shapes onto the cookie sheet, dry cookie dough bakes into dry and crumbly cookies. Remember, don’t over-mix, over-handle, or over-bake. If the dough is too dry, use 1 or 2 teaspoons of whole milk and mix it into the dough with your hands.

If dough becomes too soft during use, refrigerate dough about 5 minutes or until firm enough to hold its shape (the dough will crumble if it is too cold, and it won't stick to the cookie sheet).


Using the Cookie Press:

Pack the dough into a Cookie Press fitted with desired template/disks of your choice (disks can include wreath shapes, stars, crescents, etc).

Begin cranking and twisting (if you use an automatic cookie press follow manufacturer's instructions) the cookie dough through cookie press, forming desired shapes, onto chilled ungreased cookie sheets about 1-inch apart. If you press your spritz cookies the old fashioned way with a crank or twist press, the secret is all in the wrist. Turn the crank or the twist with the right hand, and then just before you are done, counter twist with the left hand and press gently down, then pull up and off the dough.

Hold the press upright in relation to the cookie sheet with the "legs" resting flat, and force out the dough until it appears at the edge of the mold, then lift the press away. Keep your cookies about 1-inch apart on the cookie sheet.

Sprinkle with colored sugar or add a maraschino cherry half before baking, if desired.

NOTE: I never get a perfect cookie the first, second or the 5th time out of the press. It takes patience and practice, and then the dough reaches the right temperature and the perfect spritz cookie eases out onto the sheet.