Spritz Cookies

Spritz Cookies are delicious little buttery cookies that nobody can resist. With only five ingredients, they truly are one of the holiday season’s simple pleasures. Aside from tasting amazing, one of my favorite things about spritz cookies is that you can make a large amount of them very quickly. When it comes to filling up holiday dessert platters and cookie trays, these cookies are a must make item.

Spritz Cookie Recipe

If you’ve never made spritz cookies, you will love how easy they are! It’s simply a matter of mixing up a very simple cookie dough, placing dough into the cookie press, adding a shape disc, then squeezing the press to place the shaped dough onto cookie sheets. If desired sprinkles can be added prior to baking to dress up your cookies, but it’s not required.

How To Make Spritz Cookies

Let’s discuss the ingredients you’ll need, and the steps you’ll take, to make spritz cookies. If you want to skip my discussion, tips, information and answers to frequently asked questions, just scroll to the bottom for the printable recipe.

Ingredients

1. Butter – I recommend using unsalted butter for this recipe. Make sure your butter is softened to room temperature prior to starting this recipe.
2. Sugar – Granulated white sugar.
3. Egg – Use a large egg, and it’s ideal to have it at room temperature.
4. Vanilla extract – I highly recommend going with a pure vanilla extract. This recipe has so few ingredients that the quality of each and every ingredient has an impact on the end result.
5. All-purpose flour – When measuring, give the flour a stir, then using a spoon, spoon the flour into your measuring cup, then level it off with the back of a butter knife. Do not measure your flour by scooping it with the measuring cup, as this will result in too much flour in your cookies.
6. Colored sugar or sprinkles (optional) – Sugar crystal sprinkles work well on top, but you can also use jimmies or nonpareils.

Equipment

• Cookie Press – I use both the Pampered Chef Cookie Press (which appears to no longer be available) and the OXO Good Grips Cookie Press, which is fantastic. Most cookie presses come with an assortment of shape discs, but you can buy a wide variety of different discs for different holidays.

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 375°F (190°C). In large mixing bowl, beat butter and sugar on medium speed of electric mixer for 5-7 minutes or until light and creamy, scraping down sides as necessary.
2. Add egg and vanilla; beat well for 3-4 minutes. Add flour; mix on low speed just until blended, scraping down sides as necessary. (Dough will be soft; do not refrigerate.)
3. Fit Cookie Press with desired disk and fill with dough.
4. Press dough onto Cookie Sheet approximately 1 in. apart.
5. Decorate (Optional) cookies with colored sugar or sprinkles, if desired.
6. Bake 10-12 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Cool cookies 2 minutes on Cookie Sheet; remove to cooling rack. Repeat with remaining dough.

Tips and Advice

Practice Makes Perfect – If you’ve never used a cookie press, or even if you have, I always recommend doing a few practice presses of cookies to get the feel for it. You have to find the balance between two little and too much pressure to get the perfect cookies. I think it’s a great idea to make a few practice cookie presses, until you get the hang of it. Then you can scrape up that cookie dough, and add it back to the press to use.

A Not So Sticky Situation – A problem that people sometimes have with spritz cookies is that they won’t stick to their baking sheet. There are a few factors here. Let’s discuss.

• The dough does need to be a bit tacky and works best when it’s warm.
• If you have a very non-stick surface, such as parchment paper or a fresh new non-stick pan, they just won’t want to stick. I prefer using a cookie sheet that isn’t super slick, or using a silicone baking mat. I find the silicone baking mat works really well for this problem.
• I like to put the press right on the sheet to start (so it’s actually touching the cookie sheet), then slowly pull straight up as I’m pressing – but not all the way up! Let the cookie press stay in place for a second or two after pressing out the dough, before lifting up and all the way off.

Just Beat It – For great spritz cookies, you really need to spend time beating the butter and sugar together with an electric mixer. After a few minutes you’ll notice that the mixture takes on an entirely differently look and texture. That’s the goal!

Butter is Best – I beg of you, please do not use margarine in this recipe. Butter is the main flavor in these cookies, and using margarine will absolutely impact that in a negative way.

Creative Options

Make Them Your Own – A great thing about these cookies is that you can get creative! Want to make green and red cookies? Add some food coloring after creaming together the butter and sugar. Change the extract – you can use rum extract, almond extract or any other flavor that strikes your fancy.

Spice It Up – Add a teaspoon of cinnamon to the dough if you like for a cinnamon spice spritz.

Give It A Dip – Spritz cookies are fantastic when dipped in chocolate. To do this, follow the directions I have for Chocolate Dipped Oreos, but replace the Oreos with these cookies. Use red, green, white or chocolate candy melts for a festive look.

Chocolate Spritz Cookies – If you want a chocolate version of this recipe, try my Chocolate Spritz Cookies!

More Christmas Cookies To Try

If you enjoyed this Christmas Cookie recipe, here are some other recipes I think you’ll enjoy!

• Hot Chocolate Cookies
• Candy Cane Cookies
• Linzer Cookies
• Snowball Cookie Recipe
• Soft Gingerbread Cookies
• Eggnog Cookies
• Peppermint Bark Cookies
• Chocolate M&M Cookies