My final recipe from round one of my holiday baking are Spritz cookies. These light, crispy sweet short bread cookies are perfect when you want something sweet but no too sweet this holiday season.
Spritz cookies are traditional Christmas cookies in Scandinavian countries. They are simple butter cookies, shaped by putting the dough through a cookie press. The name comes from the German word spritzen, meaning “to squirt” because the soft dough is squirted or pushed through a cookie press to make fancy designs.
My great Grandma Reeves would make these every Christmas and they were always one of my favorites because although homemade they always looked so perfectly pretty. The collar for my cookie press was found to be broken this year when I went to make my cookies…probably from being moved all over the place during the kitchen renovation, accidents happen I guess… so I improvised and used a piping bag with a large star tip to hand pipe these pretty little cookies.
This is a simple recipe with common ingredients making it all that much better so here is my recipe for Hand-piped Spritz Cookies. Enjoy!
1c. butter
1/2c. granulated sugar
2 1/4 c. all purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 egg
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
colored sugar or sprinkles for decoration
Pre-heat oven to 350F
Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon. Stir in flour, salt, egg, and vanilla extract. Place dough in cookie press or piping bag. Form desired shapes on ungreased cookie sheet. top with decorations. Bake 5 to 8 minutes or until set but not brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheet to wire rack. To decorate cookies after baking, use a drop of corn syrup to attach decorations to cookies.
