These Spritz cookies are ridiculously easy to press, sprinkle, and bake, which means you can turn out a plethora of pretty little cookies before anyone realizes you've eaten six standing over the cooling rack because they remind you of Christmas 1967.
Table of Contents
This post may contain affiliate links. If you grab something through them, I earn a small commission-at no extra cost to you-and I appreciate it more than good coffee.
🥰 Is this spritz cookie recipe for you?
- You want classic spritz cookies with crisp edges, a delicate buttery crumb, and plenty of vanilla-almond flavor.
- You need a Christmas cookie that makes a LOT without chaining you to the kitchen until Easter.
- You own a cookie press and would like to justify the drawer space it has occupied for the other 364 days of the year.
- You love cookies that look fancy after approximately twelve seconds of effort and a reckless application of sprinkles.
- You need something that holds up beautifully on Christmas cookie trays, at exchanges, and for gifting.
🧾 Ingredients
Spritz cookies are proof that butter, sugar, and a handful of pantry basics can put on a fancy dress and convince everyone you've been baking all day. The ingredient list is blessedly short, because the new Hallmark movie is debuting in an hour.
- Flour - All-purpose flour gives the cookies their delicate structure. Measure carefully because too much turns tender little spritz into festive drywall.
- Salt - Just enough to balance the sweetness and make all that glorious butter taste even better.
- Sugar - Granulated sugar sweetens the dough without making it too soft to hold those pretty pressed shapes.
- Butter - The soul of a spritz cookie. Use real butter and make sure it's properly softened so the dough presses easily without becoming greasy.
- Eggs - Add richness and give the dough enough structure to hold its shape while baking.
- Vanilla - Brings that warm, familiar bakery flavor that makes the kitchen smell like a holiday bakery.
- Almond extract - Just a little gives classic spritz cookies their distinctive old-fashioned flavor. This stuff has opinions, so measure carefully rather than pouring with your heart.
- Sprinkles - Colored sugar, jimmies, nonpareils, tiny stars... choose your weapon. Apply with the reckless confidence Christmas demands.
📖 Recipe
Spritz Cookies
Print Pin Recipe Rate RecipeIngredients
- 1 cup butter, softened
- ½ cup sugar
- 2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- ¾ teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract
- food color, colored sugar, sprinkles, and decorations as desired
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F.
- Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed
- Stir in flour, salt, egg, almond extract and a few drops of food color if desired.
- Place dough in cookie press.
- Hold the cookie press perpendicular to your cookie sheet and press out the cookies carefully.
- Form desired shapes on ungreased cookie sheet.
- Decorate with sprinkles or sugar as desired.
- Bake 5 to 8 minutes or until set but not brown.
- Immediately remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.
Notes
- Butter has to be softened to create a smooth, creamy mixture. Let it sit at room temperature for at least an hour before you get started.
- Adjust the baking time according to the size of your cookies. If your cookies are on the larger side, add an extra 1-2 minutes of baking time.
Nutrition Facts
Nutrition information is estimated as a courtesy. If using for medical purposes, please verify information using your own nutritional calculator. Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet.
This recipe has been tested several times. If you choose to use other ingredients, or change the technique in some way, the results may not be the same.
Love this recipe?
Subscribe to the free membership group and never miss another recipe!
🔪 How to make classic spritz cookies
These classic spritz cookies come together fast: mix the buttery dough, load up the cookie press, and start firing tiny Christmas trees onto the baking sheet like you've been personally commissioned by Santa. Add an unreasonable amount of sprinkles, bake just until set, and try not to eat half the batch while they cool.
- Cream the butter and sugar in a large bowl. Then, stir in the flour, salt, egg, extracts, and food coloring.
- Pack the cookie dough into your cookie press.
- Press your cookie shapes onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
- Add sprinkles and bake.
😱 What can go wrong (and how to fix it)
🧈 The dough won't come out of the cookie press. Your dough may be too cold or stiff. Let it warm up for a few minutes and try again. If it's still putting up a fight, add a teaspoon or two of heavy cream. We absolutely do negotiate with terrorists when they're made of butter.
🧈 The cookies won't release cleanly from the press. Hold the cookie press straight up and down against the baking sheet, press firmly, then lift straight up. It may take a couple of sacrificial cookies to get the rhythm right. Consider them snacks for the baker rather than casualties.
🧈 Your beautiful shapes spread into festive blobs. The butter was probably too warm or the dough got overheated while you were working with it. Pop the dough in the refrigerator for a few minutes, then resume Christmas cookie production.
🧈 The cookies are dry and crumbly. Too much flour is usually the culprit. Measure carefully and don't pack it into the measuring cup like you're preparing it for a long journey.
🧈 The cookies are getting brown. Get them out of there. Spritz cookies should be set and no longer glossy but still pale. Golden brown is not the goal here. At 400°F, things go from not quite to well, daggone it remarkably fast.
🧈 The sprinkles fall off after baking. Add sprinkles and colored sugar before the cookies go into the oven and press them very lightly into the dough if needed. For larger decorations added after baking, a tiny dab of corn syrup works like edible Christmas glue. 🎄
👩🍳 FAQs
Absolutely. Use a sturdy pastry bag fitted with a large open-star tip and pipe the dough directly onto the baking sheet. If the dough is too stiff to pipe without requiring the upper-body strength of a competitive lumberjack, mix in 1 to 2 teaspoons of heavy cream to soften it slightly.
It's easy! You can wrap the dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for up to a day. Let the covered dough warm up on the counter a bit to soften before shaping and baking.
Yep! Cookie dough freezes well. Wrap the log of dough tightly and store in the freezer for up to one month. Let it thaw in the fridge overnight.
You can also shape the cookies, flash-freeze them, then put them in a bag or container. Bake from frozen, adding an extra minute or two as needed.
📚 More buttery Christmas cookies
🏡 Classic spritz cookies are one of those Christmas recipes that make you look wildly more ambitious than you actually were. A little butter, a cookie press, and an irresponsible quantity of sprinkles later, you've got dozens of pretty cookies ready for trays, exchanges, and gifting.
Best of all, once you get into the rhythm of pressing them out, they go ridiculously fast. Make a double batch, hide a tin for yourself, and distribute the rest with the serene confidence of someone who absolutely did not eat six over the cooling rack.
Comments
No Comments