Grandma's Christmas Cookies
These are made in a cookie press. I got the recipe from Grandma, and we make them every year. You can double this recipe easily, but tripling it is a bit difficult. If you want more than double, just make two batches.
These are made in a cookie press. I got the recipe from Grandma, and we make them every year. You can double this recipe easily, but tripling it is a bit difficult. If you want more than double, just make two batches.
- Carbohydrate 12.6084346333333 g
- Cholesterol 18.2453333333333 mg
- Fat 4.266603 g
- Fiber 0.229000003576279 g
- Protein 1.07593116666667 g
- Saturated Fat 2.5570922 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Cookie (22g)
- Sodium 31.37095 mg
- Sugar 12.3794346297571 g
- Trans Fat 0.383975916666668 g
- Calories 92 calories
Step-by-step
- Cream butter (or shortening), cream cheese, and sugar until light and fluffy.
- Add egg yolk and orange extract and beat well.
- Sift flour and salt together. Add dry ingredients to cream cheese mixture in 3 additions.
- Put dough in cookie press and make shapes on ungreased cookie sheet OR drop by spoonfuls and flatten with fork tines dipped in flour.
- Decorate cookies with colored sprinkles if desired.
- Bake 8 - 10 minutes in a 400? oven OR for 10 - 11 minutes in a 350? convection oven.
Unlike standard drop cookies that rely solely on chemical leavening agents like baking powder or baking soda, pressed butter spritz rely on mechanical force and physical aeration. Creaming the butter, cream cheese, and sugar together incorporates millions of microscopic air cells into the fat matrix. These trapped pockets expand when exposed to the 400 degree Fahrenheit oven heat, creating a tender, fragile crumb structure without requiring rising agents. Adding the flour in three separate additions prevents gluten overdevelopment, which would otherwise make the dough too tough to pass through the metal barrel cleanly. Butter yields superior flavor, but shortening provides higher melting point stability if room temperatures cause the extruded shapes to slump before baking. The dough must be loaded directly into the press cylinder without chilling, as cold fat is too rigid to force through the intricate metal discs. Ungreased aluminum baking sheets provide the necessary surface friction for the extruded dough shapes to adhere instantly; greased pans cause the dough to slide off the metal instead of releasing from the press. Monitor the edges closely during the 8 to 10 minute bake time, removing the sheets as soon as the bottoms show a pale golden hue.
