Classic Spritz Cookies Recipe & Tips

There's a little bit of a trick to getting spritz cookies just right. Fortunately, practice is quite delicious. 

Ingredients

  • 1½ cups (375 mL) butter (3 sticks), softened
  • 1 cup (250 mL) sugar
  • 1   egg
  • 1 tsp (5 mL) vanilla extract
  • 3½ cups (875 mL) all-purpose flour
  •  Colored sugar or sprinkles (optional)

Directions

  1. Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C. In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed of the electric mixer about 3 minutes or until creamy, scraping down the sides as necessary. Add the egg and vanilla; beat well. Add the flour; mix on low speed just until blended, scraping down the sides as necessary. (The dough will be soft; do not refrigerate.)

  2. Fit the Cookie Press with the desired disk (see Cook's Tip) and fill it with the dough. Press the dough onto the Cookie Sheet 1" (2.5 cm) apart. Decorate the cookies with colored sugar or sprinkles, if desired. Bake 10-12 minutes or until the edges are light golden brown. Cool the cookies 2 minutes on the Cookie Sheet, then remove to the Stackable Cooling Rack. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Yield:

  • 6-7 dozen
      servings of 2 cookies

Nutrients per serving:

Calories 140, Total Fat 8 g, Saturated Fat 5 g, Cholesterol 25 mg, Carbohydrate 15 g, Protein 2 g, Sodium 55 mg, Fiber 0 g

Cook's Tips:

Do not use disk #10 for cookies. 

Chocolate Spritz Cookies: Increase sugar to 1¼ cups (300 mL). Decrease flour to 3 cups (750 mL). Combine flour and ⅓ cup (75 mL) unsweetened cocoa powder in medium mixing bowl; blend well. Proceed as recipe directs.

Tips for (Nearly) Perfect Spritz Cookies

  • Weigh your flour: for best results, weigh your flour using a kitchen scale (15 oz/425 g).
  • Softened butter: make sure your butter is well softened, but not melted. This will ensure the dough is easy to dispense.
  • Flavor variation: add 1 tsp (5 mL) almond extract if desired.
  • Make dough day-of: for the best performance, make the dough right before you intend to use it.
  • To refrigerate/freeze dough: If you need to make the dough ahead of time and refrigerate or freeze, wrap dough tightly in plastic wrap. Dough can be kept in the refrigerator for 2-3 weeks or 2 months in the freezer. Ensure dough is fully softened to room temp before adding to cookie press.
  • Chill the pan: chilling your cookie sheet in the fridge for 5-10 minutes before dispensing cookies helps the cookies to stick to the pan and keep their shape when baking.
  • Unlined Cookie Sheet: press dough on to an ungreased and unlined cookie sheet to ensure the dough sticks. Do not use parchment paper.
  • Dispensing dough: to dispense dough, twist handle till you can see the dough start to come out. Place cookie press standing up on cookie sheet, twist to dispense until you feel a bit of resistance and then lift straight up.
  • Reuse dough: it may take a few tries to get the hang of the cookie press. If the dough doesn’t come out how you would like, don’t worry, scrape off the dough and add it back to the cookie press and try again.
  • Switch up your pattern: you can easily swap out the disks for a different pattern. Unscrew the lower cap and swap out the disk to get an assortment of cookies.
  • Decorate before baking: add sprinkles, jimmies or nonpareils on top of cookies before baking so they bake right in.
  • Freeze baked cookies: place cookies in an airtight container and can be frozen for up to 3 months.

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