Holiday Tradition: Spritz Cookies

This weekend, I went down to my parents house to help out with a few things and decided it was a good time to commence Christmas cooking baking for the season!

With grandma turning 96 this year, it's getting to be a bit much for her (and my mom) to make oodles and oodles of Christmas cookies every year. There are about seven that are regulars at Christmas time and this year I'm making them all while grandma supervises! This weekend we made round one of spritz cookies, and thumbprint cookies. This post will cover spritz cookies, I'm saving thumbprint cookies for another time.

In case you don't already know spritz cookies, you need a cookie press to make them. Here's the cookie press my mom and grandma have. The recipe is super simple.

Spritz Cookies

Yield about 6 dozen

1 cup butter

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg

2 1/4 cups flour

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon lemon extract

1. Preheat oven to 400 F.
2. Mix together flour, salt, and baking powder and set aside.
3. Cream the butter.
4. Slowly add sugar and cream mix well until fluffy.
5. Beat in the egg and extract.
6. Slowly add the flour mixture.
7. Separate the dough for coloring.
8. Fill your cookie press and press cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet about 1 1/2 inches apart.
9. Decorate as desired with sprinkles and colored sugar!
10. Bake 10 - 12 minutes.
11. Allow to cool for about 5 minutes on cookie sheet, then remove to a cooling rack to cool completely.