Holiday Spritz Cookies

"No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of others." Charles Dickens

As with every year, one week of December was completely devoting to the baking, decorating, and distibution of goodies. I'm one of those people who doesn't actually celebrate Christmas, but appreciates all of the cultural traditions and the overall spirit of the holiday season.

Each year I gift family friends and coworkers with baked goods. It's my way of participating and saying "you celebrate Christmas and that's cool!" I'm absolutely not one of those people who is offended by the use of Merry Christmas, though I'm personally confused when people asked me "how I celebrated Christmas?" It's just odd to make that assumption of all people.

Two years ago I made individual boxes of chocolates for my coworkers complete with holiday flavored truffles. Last year I made little baggies of cookies. Because I've developed quite a fondness for my holiday cookie cutters, I've made cookies again this year. However, I tried a new recipe for a new cookie I'd never made and it's absoutely changed my life.

Not only does the dough for this cookie taste phenomenal (the true test), but the cookies are so versatile that I'll be making them for every holiday that I can. The colors added a nice aesthetic to the tins of cookies. They were by far the most highly complimented cookies of the bunch this year. Spritz cookies are my new favorite.

Spritz Cookies

Ingredients

• 1/2 cup butter, softened not melted

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 egg

• 2 tbsp milk (i used almond)

• 1/2 tsp vanilla

• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

• 1/2 tsp salt

• food coloring and sprinkles optional

Instructions

1. In bowl of stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together.

2. Beat in egg, milk, and vanilla.

3. Separately, combine flour and salt. Slowly add to creamed mixture. Do not over mix.

4. Partitioning cookie dough color with food coloring.

5. Wrap dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate.*If using a cookie press, leave enough time for the dough to come back down to room temperature before attempting to press cookies. I refrigerated overnight and baked the following day, leaving one hour for cookies to settle out of the fridge.*

6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees (using my smaller oven, I baked at 325)

7. Fill cookie press and press out cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet. Decorate before baking

8. Bake each cookie for 6-8 minutes unil edges begin to brown. Cool on wire racks.

#holiday #christmas #cookies #food