A cookie press can make a variety of beautifully shaped cookies that you can decorate with sugar sprinkles. This dough, based on a recipe that belonged to my grandmother, has a little bit of cream cheese, which gives it a slight tanginess. Plan to make all of the cookies immediately—don't store the dough in the refrigerator or it will dry out and be difficult to work with.
Special Equipment Needed: Electric mixer, cookie press
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 8 minutes
Total Time: 28 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1 cup shortening
- 3 ounces cream cheese
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 teaspoon almond extract
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
Preparation:
- Preheat oven to 350˚F. In a bowl, use an electric mixer to cream together the shortening and cream cheese well. Add sugar gradually, and continue mixing until well-blended.
- Beat in the egg yolk, vanilla extract and almond extract.
- In a bowl, combine the flour and the salt, stir to combine with a whisk. Add the flour mixture to the shortening mixture and mix with medium speed until a ball of dough forms and pulls away from the sides of the bowl.
- Load the dough into a cookie press. Form the cookies onto an ungreased sheet pan. Decorate with colored sugar, sprinkles and other decorations.
- Bake at 350˚F for 6 to 8 minutes until the bottoms are lightly golden (do not let the tops of the cookies turn golden). Let cookies cool about 2 minutes on the sheet pan before transferring to a wire cooling rack to cool.
This recipe for Cookie Press Spritz Cookies makes about 6 dozen cookies.
