I decided to try making spritz cookies, so I bought a cookie press on ebay. When it arrived, I didn’t have the ingredients necessary to make a batch of dough, but I was too excited to wait. The instructions that came with the press said I could use ready-made sugar cookie dough, and luckily, I had some! They did warn, however, that cookies made with sugar dough wouldn’t hold their shape as well as cookies made with spritz dough, and that turned out to be quite true. They looked fine at first, but the shapes were definitely not very defined after baking.
Sugar cookie dough:
See how you can’t really make out the shapes? They were tasty, but boring to look at. Decorating them was a lot of fun though!
Not long after that, I was able to make the trip to the grocery store. I got the ingredients necessary for Fresh Orange Spritz Cookies. The dough was nice and soft, not too sticky, and it made a ton of cookies that held their shapes very well. I added maraschino cherry halves to some of the flower-shaped cookies before baking. As for taste, there was a perfect hint of orange that I figured would be great with chocolate, so I drizzled melted Wilton Candy Melts over some of them them. They were delicious! Unfortunately, I was unable to get a very good picture of them before they were eaten and given away :/
I found that both batches of cookies were pretty hard on the first day, and I liked them a lot better the next day, after they’d softened a bit. The cookies with maraschino cherries were the best, and I plan to make an entire batch of those sometime in the near future. I’m also interested in using flavor oils and food dyes to make one batch of plain spritz cookies and split it into several flavors and colors.
I really enjoyed making these cookies and using the press. My advice to anyone trying them out for the first time: give yourself plenty of time to bake and decorate them. While they only bake for 10 minutes or so, it takes a long time to make so many, and an even longer time to decorate. By the end of the night, I was soooo tired, I was just drizzling chocolate without paying attention to how it looked. I’d rather make designs with the chocolate, so I’ll be starting much earlier in the day next time!
One Crafty Bean 