Bake it Yourself: Spritz Cookies

One of the first kinds of cookies we learned to bake at school were Spritz cookies. These are your standard bakeshop cookies, the kind you see sold everywhere with sprinkles on them or half dipped in chocolate. The dough is malleable enough that you can pipe it out into shapes or use a cookie press, but also thick enough to hold its shape. Super cute and easy to make, the hardest part being piping them out into uniform cookies. But practice makes perfect!

This recipe I obtained from my On Baking textbook and has worked well for me so far. I also indicated Strawberry jam, as that was the kind I was making, but feel free to use whatever additions you’d like!

Spritz Cookies with Strawberry Jam

Ingredients
1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 1/4 cups cake flour
Strawberry fruit preserves/jam

You will also need:
2 piping or ziplock bags
1 large star tip

Method
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Line a large baking pan with parchment paper.

Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the salt, vanilla extract and egg; beat well.

 

Add the flour gradually, beating until just blended. Don’t over mix, you don’t want to get it stiff.

 

Fit your tip into your piping or ziplock bag. This is the size I used, it’s #829 in case you own numbered tips. It’s better to use a large tip because when you pipe out the dough into circles, smaller tips will leave a hole in the middle of your rounds. And if you’re putting preserves in there, it’ll fall right out the bottom.

 

Fill your piping bag with the dough. It does get messy but in order to get all the dough to the bottom (and have a cleaner bag, as our Chef instructor likes ), take a ruler or something with a flat edge to move it all down.

 

Like so. Cleaner bags make for cleaner piping!

 

Pipe the dough into rounds on your pan. This is the tricky part, but the good thing is any funky looking ones you can scrape up back in your bag and try again. Also – make sure to space them enough apart so there’s room to spread! These are actually too close together and they spread snugly right up next to each other in the oven. Once you’re done with that, make an indent in the middle of each cookie mound with a gloved finger dipped in water.

 

Now it’s time to jam out! Strawberry jam, that is. Fill your piping bag with enough to fill the middle of the cookies.

 

Snip off a small opening on the end of your bag and pipe the jam onto each cookie. I used a small ziplock bag. In case you’re doing the same, be careful not to squeeze too hard on the bag, as the pressure will cause the bag to break and hello mess! Gently squeeze from closer to the opening, not from the top.

 

Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 12 minutes, until lightly browned around the edges. Transfer to wire racks to cool.

 

This recipe yielded two dozen cookies, but that all depends on the size you make yours. I made this batch for my very beautiful and very pregnant friend, Justine – who will be expecting a brand new baby girl in two weeks! I couldn’t be more happy or excited for her . A belated but sweet Christmas gift. Yum!

 
Love & Sweets,
Mel

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