Spritz cookies

I love making spritz cookies.  It seems they are made most often around the Christmas season, but I enjoy them all year.

The original full name of this cookie was spritzgebach.  The name comes from the German spritzen which means to squirt or spray or splash (think spritzing plants with a fine spray of water).  It seems this cookie was made as far back as the 1500s.  Traditionally families would have their own special recipe for this buttery cookie, one that was handed down through the generations.  I understand that today parents and children still spend considerable time baking these cookies during the holiday season in northern European countries such as Germany, Sweden, Norway, and others.  They are made by extruding the dough through a cookie press.  Most often these are seen with some sort of floral design or perhaps in the shapes of S's or O's.  But I always make mine the way I had them when I was young, in long planks with sawtooth ridges.

I hadn't made them for quite some time after I entered my adult years, but then one spring I decided it was time to revisit them.  I went shopping for a cookie press which I didn't in have in my kitchen.  Over a few months I tried a couple different presses, but each one was incapable of producing the desired result.  It seems these days, at least with the cookie presses I could find, they are made with cheap plastic and inefficient and weak handles which gradually push out the dough in a way which doesn't allow for much control.  I was not happy with what I could find.  So I went searching online for the one used in my family years and years ago.  I found out they aren't made anymore.  So Ebay was next and, voila!, I found a great press in fantastic shape.

Seeing that item for the first when it was delivered brought back many memories of eating truckloads of Christmas cookies and other holiday treats.  This press, made by Mirro, is all metal, and has a corkscrew handle which makes it really easy to extrude cookie dough whether soft or not.  Could it be engineered more efficiently?  Probably.  But this would do.  I have used it now for a long time in my kitchen.

It comes with a variety of press plates and some tips, but I always use the one in the center in the picture above, theplate with the single long narrow opening.  This one gives me the long planks with the ridges that I so loved when I was a kid.  I still prefer it because it gives a cookie which has much more surface area and can be made into as long a plank as one desires.  When I make them for people I usually do so in 4-inch planks.  They are easier to package without breaking them.  But when I'm making them at home, I often take them to 6 or 8 inches.  It is so much fun to display a platter of those long long cookies to guests who seems to love them made that way as much as I do.  And when they are extruded you can add little waves to the ridges.  They don't have be flat.  Tthe planks with wavy undulations that are created look very artistic and are fun to eat.  The basic recipe I use for my spritz cookies is actually the one Mirro used to package with its press, but with just a single minor alteration of my own.  There was no real need to mess with perfection as I saw it.  Cooking these takes patience and close careful watching.  I like to get them out of the oven when the edges are browned just right.  Earlier or later than that "just right" moment and they are still good which is one of the great things about this cookie.  As we are approaching the holiday season, I've had many students and friends already asking if I will be making spritz.

And the answer is, "Yes, of course!"