easy spritz cookie recipe

My family and I make spritz cookies every year for Christmas. It’s actually pretty fun to shoot these little beauties out of the cookie press, and they come out perfectly formed in our desired shape. And as you'll see from the recipe, there's not a lot of sugar in these cookies, so they perfect with your morning tea or coffee or with a little hot cocoa in the evening. 

A little box of these also makes a nice gift! 

I first started making these years ago when we inherited a cookie press from my husband’s Nana. We used it for several years, but it eventually wore out, and I purchased a Pampered Chef version that’s been fabulous. It’s what we use every year to make these adorable treats.

If you’re not familiar with a cookies press, it’s basically a cylinder with a sort of lever at one end that pushes shaped cookies out of the other end.

All you do is choose one of many festive shapes, screw it on the cookie press and fill with cookie dough. The dough is pretty easy to work with too. It’s kind of got the consistency of play dough so it’s fun to work with. They secret is not to let the dough get too warm, and it helps to press these onto a cooled cookie sheet.  

I think these are a lot easier and 

more fun to make than traditional sugar cookies. 

Traditional Spritz Cookies

1 cup butter, softened

½ cup sugar

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour

¼ teaspoon salt

1 egg

¼ teaspoon vanilla

Natural food color and sprinkles, if desired

Heat oven to 400ºF. Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon. Stir in flour, salt, egg, vanilla and a few drops of food color.

Place dough in cookie press. Form desired shapes on ungreased cookie sheet.

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.

By the way, the name spritz comes from a German word that means "to squirt" because the soft dough is squirted through the cookie press to make super cute designs. 

The luxurious texture and flavor of these cookies comes from the butter, and to me, they actually taste better the next day!

So tell me, have you ever made spritz?

ciao! fabiana