Spritz Cookies

Sorry, City Gay. This entry isn't directed to you.

Dear Girl with a Blog:

Here is the recipe for the spritz cookies you requested. It's really simple, but for some reason, I am the only one in my family who can/will make them. They can be a bit frustrating to make because the dough won't stay on a hot baking sheet when you send them out of the cookie press. I've read that a way to resolve this is to run the cookie sheet under cold water before preparing the next batch.

Spritz Cookies
Yields 5 dozen

Ingredients:
1 1/2 cups butter or margarine
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
4 cups sifted flour
1 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar. Add egg, vanilla, and almond extract. Sift flour and baking powder. (I don't actually sift them; I just stir them together.) Gradually add this to the creamed mixture. Do not chill the dough. (A challenge here is to not eat all of the raw dough because it tastes damn good.)

(At this point, I separate the dough into three different bowls and add red or green food coloring to color the dough. This isn't a necessary step, but it does add something for the holidays.)

Force the dough through a cookie press on an ungreased baking sheet.

Bake for 8-10 minutes and cool on wire racks.

(My grandma used to frost these and put sprinkles on them. I skip that part so I can just enjoy the cookies, which have a sweet almond flavor because of the almond extract.)

The nice thing about this recipe is it makes enough cookies to enjoy yourself and to give to people around the holidays. It's also fun to experiment with the different disks that create different cookies. I find the tree shape is the easiest to make. The less complicated the cookie design, the easier the cookie will take shape. The good thing is if the cookie doesn't come out of the press well, you just put the dough back in and try again.

Happy baking!
Country Gay

Holiday Snackies

Dear City Gay:

Now that I'm on Christmas Break, I have some time to share with you a gift I put together for a lunch table Secret Santa gift exchange. Our price limit was $5, and I knew there was no way I would be able to buy something suitable for my chosen colleague with only $5. Since Christmas is the season of eating too much unhealthy food, I thought I would spread the joy with a tray of (mostly homemade) goodies.


As you can see, this is no ordinary tray. To keep with the lunchtime idea, I bought an inexpensive (under $5) lunch tray from Target. I thought this would be much more interesting than a typical, cheap, plastic holiday tray.

The treats are also simple to make: (clockwise from the top left) Giada de Laurentiis's Holiday Biscotti, basic chocolate chip cookies (look on the back of a Nestle Tollhouse Chocolate Chip bag for the recipe), Peppermint Hershey's White Chocolate Kisses, sour cream sugar cookies with cream cheese frosting, the famous balls, and spritz (or press) cookies from my grandmother's recipe.

If only holiday lunches had looked like this in elementary school!

Cheers,
Country Gay