Spritz Cookies – Amazing Food Tech
There is a lot of tech in the food game. Everything from laser etching of pies to printing your own picture on your latte foam, not to mention all that 3D printing stuff. But the best tech ever to hit the food arena is the spritz cookie press. Spritz cookies give us everyday folks the power of home extrusion, allowing us to click our way to various shaped cookies in many flavors and do so deliciously and efficiently. Who needs 3D printing!
How To Make Spritz Cookies – The Dough
Along with the cookie press, a good sugar cookie recipe is all you need to make them. I like a good sugar cookie, but I like a good chocolate sugar cookie better. The cocoa brings a fudge flavor that is easy to appreciate in a cookie. Aside from the added cocoa, the ingredients for a sugar cookie recipe are pretty standard – flour, baking powder, dash of salt, butter, sugar, vanilla, and egg. And, like most other cookie making endeavors, the process is not difficult. Mix dry ingredients, cream the butter and sugar, add eggs and flavors, mistakenly incorporate dry ingredients into wet ingredients using a mixer on high speed instead of low, creating a big flour cloud! Fantastic!
How To Make Spritz Cookies – To Sift Or Not To Sift?
One note on the dry ingredients. The recipe below calls for 2 cups sifted flour. Not 2 cups flour, sifted. These are different things. I have made it both ways and it seems the sifting might make a slightly better dough for the cookie press i.e a slightly softer one. In truth, I am not totally convinced of the need to sift. It is best to err on the side of a dough that extrudes better because it is softer.
The Spritz Cookie Press
The press for spritz cookies is the kitchen equivalent of the caulk gun with an added mould at the end to shape the cookie. These are available on the web and are inexpensive. With a standard recipe and a cookie press, 7 dozen spritz cookies can made in a matter of minutes.
Spritz Cookie Not The Pan
One difference between spritzing and not is that the baking pans shouldn’t be sprayed with any non-stick spray and parchment paper is not the best idea. The dough needs to be a little sticky so it sticks to the pan on extrusion. This makes depositing the cookie easier. There is plenty of butter in the recipe so the cookies won’t stick after baking.
How To Make Spritz Cookies – The Video and Recipe
The video below gives a full primer on how to make spritz cookies. The full chocolate spritz cookie recipe follows.
- 2 cups of sifted flour
- 5 tbsp of cocoa powder
- 1/4 tsp of baking powder
- 1/4 tsp of salt
- 1/2 cup of sugar
- 1.5 sticks of butter, softened
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp of vanilla extract
- Pre-heat the oven to 400F.
- In a large bowl, sift together all the dry ingredients, excluding the sugar.
- In a large bowl, using a hand mixer or stand mixer, cream the butter until fluffy. Gradually add the sugar, continuously whipping the mixture until the sugar is fully incorporated into the butter.
- Add the egg and vanilla to the butter mixture. Cream the mixture until the egg and vanilla are fully incorporated.
- Slowly, using low speed, add the dry ingredient mixture to the butter mixture until the flour mixture is fully incorporated and a soft dough has formed.
- Load the dough into a cookie press. Press the cookies onto unlined, unsprayed baking trays. If desired, the cookies could be decorated before baking.
- Bake the cookies 8-10 minutes.
- After baking, let cool 5-10 minutes. Remove to a cooling rack.
- Cookies can be stored for a few days in a sealed container. They can also be frozen.
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Have you ever made spritz cookies?
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This tool exists?? How come I never heard of it?? I’m buying one ASAP!! The cookies look fantastic!