I have such fond memories of making Spritz cookies as a child. My mom used to make it so much fun for my sister, Kelly, and I. She would press out all the cookies with the ancient metal cookie press and we would then get to decorate them. We used cut up maraschino cherries for the Scottie dog’s collar, silver ball candies for the balls on the Christmas trees, sprinkles for the wreaths. Then we made sure to sample them as they came out of the oven. Oh, the memories. I wanted to start to pass along some of these traditions to my kids, so I made sure they were both present for the Spritz cookie baking & decorating.
This recipe is straight from the old Betty Crocker Cookbook, modified to be gluten-free.
1 cup butter, softened (no margarine here…butter is a must!)
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/4 cups GF flour mix (I used Carol’s Sorghum Mix)
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp xanthan gum
1 egg
1 tsp almond extract (another must have….this makes these cookies!)
1. Cream butter & sugar.
2. Blend in remaining ingredients.
3. Chill for 30 minutes or so.
4. Heat oven to 400.
5. Fill cookie press with 1/4 of the dough at a time.
6. Form desired shapes on ungreased baking sheet
7. Bake 6 to 9 minutes or until set, but not brown
8. Cool slightly & then remove to cooling racks.
My notes:
- Don’t use Pamela’s Baking Mix or any other mix with baking soda or baking powder for this recipe
- My cookie press is very cantankerous. I don’t know what the issue is, but the dough likes to stick to the plastic disks . This happened pre-GF, too, so it isn’t the GF dough. Maybe try parchment paper on the cookie sheet to convince the dough to want to stick to the cookie sheet.
- My oven took exactly 6 minutes. If I had left them in for 9, they would have been brown. I use an oven thermometer to monitor the temp in my oven at all times. Best $10 I ever spent.
Towards the end, we gave up on the cookie press & started rolling them by hand:
Jon threatening me to eat the dough – I had already freaked out on him once b/c of the raw eggs. Funny guy. 😉
Like the messy hands?
My own personal decorator. 🙂
These cookies rocked! They are my favorite so far!
Even my non-cookie-eating husband was raving about these!
Okay, one more picture, only because I am starving now! LOL!
Do you have any cookie traditions?