Holiday Spritz Cookies

I don't normally make Christmas cookies. Holiday baking was never a tradition in the house I grew up in. Yet, somehow I acquired a cookie press. It has been in the back of one of my cupboards for the longest time. I can't remember how it got there. It must have been a gift from someone. I do remember using it once. I tried out a pressed cookie recipe from my old reliable, Betty Crocker. The cookies tasted like, well, pressed cookies, nothing to get excited about and certainly not good enough to become part of the holiday traditions in my own home.

Also lost in the mists of time is the origin of a pressed cookie recipe that has been in my "Recipes to Try" folder for the longest time. Today I finally decided to give it a whirl. Big mistake! While the dough and the resulting cookies taste great, the dough is much too stiff to use in the cookie press. The one I have even has a trigger, making it easier to use and easier to control the amount of dough for each cookie. It is also easy on my arthritic hands. Nonetheless, none of the tips I tried resulted in an actual shaped cookie and some of them were impossible to squeeze any dough through. I finally hit on the idea of using the bar shape and made ribbon cookies. At last I was able to actually squeeze out the dough fairly easily and into a recognizable shape. This is another one of those recipes that leaves me scratching my head and wondering if anyone actually tried it out before publishing it?

Verdict: What were they thinking???

Holiday Spritz Cookies

(Source: Unknown)

2 1/2 cups sifted flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1 cup softened unsalted butter
3/4 cup sugar
dash of salt
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract

Sift together flour and baking powder. Cream butter, sugar and salt; add egg and vanilla. Beat flour into butter mixture. Add food coloring if desired. Press through cookie press with a star tip and place on a cold, ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12 minutes in a 350 degree oven.

Makes 45 cookies.

Recycle: vanilla extract bottle

Compost: eggshell