One of my grandma’s recipes. Delicate little puffs of nothing, these are the fastest-disappearing Christmas cookies in our house. The recipe calls for shortening, but it occurred to me recently that that might be a depression-era convention because every Spritz recipe I’ve ever seen uses butter. I use about 1/2 shortening and 1/2 butter, with the heavy half leaning toward the shortening. Too much butter and the cookies end up dry and coarse.
Spritz (cookie press)
Ingredients
- 2 cups shortening that's right, 2 cups
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 2 teaspoons almond extract
- 4 cups flour
- pinch salt
Instructions
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Cream together shortening, sugar, egg, and almond extract.
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Stir in flour and salt.
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Chill overnight (or at least a few hours), then use a cookie press to make shapes.
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Sprinkle colored sugar on each cookie.
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Bake at 375° on an ungreased cookie sheet 8 – 12 minutes until barely golden.
Recipe Notes
You'll have to experiment with how well-chilled the dough is vs. how well your cookie press can handle it. If you know of a cookie press that can handle stiff dough without stripping out, please let me know. I've looked for years and have had no luck. Thus, any cookie press I buy tends to be disposable.
