Day 6- Cinnamon Sugar Spritz Cookies

AKA Too Much Butter Cookies

AKA The Cookies That Won

AKA I Hate These #$@&* Cookies

My mom gave me a cookie press for Christmas about 3 years ago. I've never used it til today. I guess I was intimidated by the press, or maybe I convinced myself I didn't like them. I'm not sure, but it remained unopened in the box for a very long time. It's not like it was hidden or put away somewhere I couldn't find it, it was in my kitchen island, next to my lean mean fat reducing grilling machine. I look at it often, but I never had a recipe for Spritz, so there it sat.

I was browsing through blogs and came across a recipe for Spritz cookies. I bookmarked it. They were really cute, but they didn't have anything in them that seemed overly exciting. They just seemed like pressed sugar cookies, and I already had a recipe for sugar cookies. I googled "spritz" and came across Cinnamon spritz, but there wasn't a recipe. So I thought I'd just adapt the recipe that everyone said was so good by adding a little ground cinnamon, and sprinkling cinnamon sugar over the top- kind of like a snickerdoodle.

Then, I softened my butter, sifted my flour, sifted the flour again, creamed the butter and sugar, added the vanilla, stirred, added the flour, read the cookie press instructions, loaded the smokin' gun and went to town. The dough seemed really soft, but then again I've never made these before, so what do I know. I pressed, I had fun, I even got Mr. h to press a few trees out. It was a little exciting and I wondered why I had waited so long to use the cookie press. I popped them into the oven and 10 minutes later I had made thin, salty, buttery, tender, unrecognizable trees, or more like blobs.

I read the recipe, read it again, then again and then (!) I realized I added way too much butter. I added 3 sticks of butter! Which is twice the amount I needed, but I didn't realize it until I had already baked 2 sheets of cookies :-( I added more flour, more sugar, and more vanilla. I reloaded the gun and it was so stiff, the dough kept oozing out of the gun without me pressing the trigger. I emptied the barrel, added the extra egg yolk I had forgotten, and reloaded. STILL STIFF. I emptied the barrel again, while flinging dough all over the kitchen and myself and cussing up a storm. I added a very tiny amount of milk and reblended the dough. I loaded the gun one more time and the texture was finally perfect.

The flavor was great. The texture was tender and buttery and my husband loved them. He kept walking by and stealing the little tree blobs. Now don't be turned off by all my ranting. As long as you follow the recipe closely (unlike I did) and don't double the butter (like I did) they'll be great and hassle free. I hope you don't have to have your husband pick crusted dough out of your hair. Have fun!

Cinnamon Sugar Spritz Cookies adapted from Peabody (You will need a cookie press in order to make these cookies)

• 2 cups cake flour
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• cinnamon sugar for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 350F. Line several cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Sift flour into a bowl. Add in the salt and cinnamon and sift again. It is important to sift the flour twice.

In a stand mixer, beat butter on medium speed for several minutes until soft. With the mixer on low speed, add the sugar in a slow stream and beat until light and fluffy. Add in the egg yolk and both extracts and mix until combined. Then add in the flour mixture and mix until combined.

Load the dough into the cookie press per the manufacturer’s instructions. Press cookies onto the cookie sheets about 1 ½ inches apart. Decorate the cookies with sprinkles, candies, and other decorations. I sprinkled cinnamon sugar on mine. Bake for 8-10 minutes until golden. Cool cookie sheets on a wire rack.

**Makes about 5 dozen small cookies**

Here are my tree blobs, they kinda look like arrowheads!

And now a prettier tree :-) Merry Christmas!