SPRITZ COOKIES

Just when I believe that I can’t possibly surpass a certain action of mine, well, it turns out I always manage to pull one out of my sleeve. I was gifted this Wilton cookie press by a cousin, on her return from a holiday in America, and I completely managed to forget about it. Yes, I am a legend when it comes to ‘out of sight, out of mind’ kind forgetfulness. I could not believe myself when I ‘discovered’ it lying in the closet of one of our spare bedrooms. Will you believe me if I tell you, she gave it to me five years back. (absolute blasphemy, right!?) Honestly, I am thoroughly appalled at myself! How could I forget a present and that too a cookie press? (since I love baking cookies) Still beats me! This time I definitely feel I have surpassed myself by all standards and I really hope it stays that way. So, I am redeeming myself by sharing these lovely spritz cookies in variety of shapes, size and flavors. (I am wondering if I stretched this redeeming thing too far 😛 )

Spritz cookies are also called butter cookies since that is the key ingredient in these cookies which gives them that rich taste and crisp texture. They are traditional Scandinavian Christmas cookies and got their name from the German word spritzen which means to ‘squirt’ and here the cookie dough is released or ‘squired’ through a cookie press which allows a variety of disk attachments to help achieve fancy shapes/ patterns of cookies. These cookies are breeze to make and require few basic ingredients and are kid friendly. Allow kids to help you make these cookies and have fun! You can serve these cookies, dusted with sugar, frosted or dipped in melted chocolate or sprinkled with sugar (before you bake them)

Ingredients

1 C Butter

100 gm Icing Sugar

1 large/ 60 gm Egg

2¼ All Purpose Flour (Maida)

1½ tsp Vanilla Extract

Additives, if desired (check notes at the end of the post)

Set the oven to heat at 180 degrees C. 

Grease a baking tray (two if you have a larger oven) with butter and keep it in freezer for at least fifteen minutes. 

Meanwhile, prepare the cookie dough. In a bowl, whisk butter for a minute. Add sugar and whisk again will the mixture becomes light and fluffy. Add vanilla extract and whisk again till it gets incorporated.  Add the egg and whisk again till the egg gets incorporated.

Add flour and mix till there are no dry bits (do not over mix the mix though)

Fill and pack the dough in to the cookie press and force the dough through the press over the chilled baking tray.

Bake the cookies for 12 to 15 minutes (I prefer 15 minutes coz I like them crunchy) 

Remove from the oven and allow to cool before removing them over to a wire rack.

Cool completely before adding any kind of glaze.

Yield – 4 to 5 dozen (depending on size)

Note – I divided the butter, sugar, egg batter in four equal parts and also the flour in equal parts. Then I added different additives and gel colours – for instance the green ones have finely chopped lemon zest, the red ones have cinnamon (that I added to the flour), the ones dipped in chocolate (check picture below) have espresso coffee and the flower shaped cookies have almond flavour.

So for this recipe, to four different batters, I used half a teaspoon of cinnamon powder, one teaspoon of coffee, half a teaspoon of almond extract, zest of a lemon along with half a teaspoon lemon essence.

Note – Feel free to swap the vanilla extract with almond extract. Another option is to reduce the vanilla to one teaspoon and use spices of the our choice, such as cinnamon or cardamom powder.

If you do not want spicy cookies, feel free to swap them with some lemon zest or orange zest. Choose which ever flavour profile you wish to have. You can even add some cocoa powder for chocolate cookies. The possibilities are endless and depend totally on how you wish to enjoy these cookies.

Thanks for your visit and see you soon again with another exciting recipe!

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