Baking should not make you want to throw something but that is what happened when I purchased my first cookie press last week. My mom has made buttery spritz cookies at Christmas every year of my life. I figured at forty-two years old I could make a spritz butter cookie. These Scandinavian holiday favorites looked so cute and easy to bake! Plus I got kind of nutty buying Christmas cookie decorations here in 2022 so I kind of have to bake a lot of Christmas cookies this holiday season. Oh darn, I have to spend my afternoons baking and caroling Christmas songs at the top of my lungs… Twist my arm, would you?
How hard could it be to use a cookie press I wondered as I put on my best coconut oil-splattered baking clothes. This looks so simple, I thought to myself putting a not-exactly-cheap cookie press in my Amazon shopping cart. This was two weeks before I found a $5.99 cookie press through Biglots.com. I thought wow, I got ripped off paying thirty-two dollars for my Amazon cookie press! Well, it turns out there’s a lot more to making spritz cookies than just putting plalic-shaped dough in a cookie press. As I learned, when baking spritz cookies, you do not want to use an inexpensive cookie press.
Spritz cookies are known to be a German Christmas favorite. One thing about Germany; They love their Christmas markets or Weihnachtsmarkts. Weihnachtsmarkts are known to be a place to find some festive foods, mulled wines that taste like apple cider and all kinds of curried wursts (brats) The air at German markets is scented with the smell of roasted marones (Chestnuts) or fresh almonds being roasted. Marzipan, fried dough, stollen or lebkuchen (spiced cookies) are easily found at food stalls from Munich to Nuremberg in December. The name spritz comes from the German word spritzen, which means to squirt. That explains the use of the cookie press. These buttery and lemony spritz cookies are my California adaptation of the German favorite.
Wie man backt spritz cookies
So how do you bake spritz cookies? Well, obviously there’s the recipe you pick out to make the perfect Christmas cookie. I like to add a little bit of lemon extract, Meyer lemon juice and freshly ground lemon rind to my spritz cookies. You can always add a touch of either red or green food coloring and substitute vanilla extract for the almond extract if you are not a fan of marzipan, stollen and those German cookie flavors. These buttery lemon spritz cookies are beyond so delicious and you will feel like you have to do a long hike after shoving some at your face!
The best thing about December is sweaty snow hikes followed by holiday baking with minimal guilt. At least that is what I tell myself as I shove just one more delicious Christmas cookie at my face. Looking for the best Christmas cookie recipe this holiday season? I think you just found it!
What happened next was a true holiday baking disaster
First of all the box of the cookie press came in basically did not give any directions. I found a YouTube video that looked like it was made in 1996 and that seems to be a little bit more helpful. But still, I was failing at figuring out how on earth to make an actual cookie come out of this cookie press. Until my boyfriend walked in and said, oh it’s just using a caulking gun. It’s easy. Well, obviously I don’t know how to use a cauking gun. Do these snowshoes make me look like a construction worker?
One thing about purchasing a cookie press, even if you buy a more expensive cookie press, expect your forearms to hurt. It’s a lot of squeezing and cursing. My advice, straight from the caulking master himself is to make sure the cookie press is chock full of your cookie dough tube. Squeeze the dough out until it’s right at the edge. Then squeeze it out super slow until you hear your cookie press/caulking gun click, That is the time to press the dough down to make the perfect cookie! Or just start drinking. If you get as frustrated as I do, you can always just roll out your cookie dough and cut out awesome Christmas shapes with cool holiday cookie cutters. If you get as frustrated with using a cookie press as I did, you can always just return it to Amazon or throw it in the trash.
This is a true Amazon review I found for the cookie press I purchased, I can’t return it because my husband threw it out the back door to stop my crying and the dogs ran off with it. True story.
I personally did return my pain in the Christmas ass cookie press because I thought it was just ridiculous to use. I totally felt like the lady at the UPS store was judging me when I returned my obviously used crappy cookie press back to Amazon. It might not have helped that when I gave up on the cookie press, I washed it, and shoved it still wet back into the box. Which might not have looked pristine by the next day.
So you want to buy a cookie press
I really hope your cookie press adventure is stress-free and not full of tears and curse words.
- Buy a cookie press with stainless steel decorative blades. It will be less cheap and easier to use.
- Purchase a cookie press with a clear tube so that you can see how much dough is in it at all times.
It’s so important when creating spritz cookies to make sure your dough is the perfect consistency. I leave my salted butter out at room temperature for at least three hours. But I do use cold eggs and lemon juice, which I think makes your dough a good temperature.
Buttery Meyer Lemon Spritz Cookies
1 cup organic sugar
1 and a half cups salted butter, room temperature
2 eggs, separated, cold
1 teaspoon Meyer lemon juice, cold
1 teaspoon lemon extract
zest of one Meyer lemon
3 3/4 cups of flour
Beat the butter and sugar until yellow and smooth. Add in the lemon extract, juice, zest and the egg yolks. Mix in the flour. Press into a cookie press if you are brave and want an arm workout. If not just roll out the dough with lots of flour and cut it into fun Christmas shapes, yea. Brush egg whites on top and add cute Christmas sprinkle. Bake at 375 for 8 minutes.
