Cream Cheese Spritz Cookies

Vanilla and chocolate cream cheese spritz cookies are my holiday go-to this year. Soft, buttery, petite cookies in decorative designs, baked to perfection. Straight up or topped with glaze and festive holiday sprinkles make for a classic holiday cookie that’s easy to pull off during that crazy time of year. These make a wonderful cookie at Christmas, or any other time of the year you crave a traditional butter cookie, minus all the work.

For those unfamiliar, Spritz cookies are vastly popular in Scandinavian countries, where they are considered traditional Christmas cookies. According to What’s Cooking America, the name comes from the German word “spritzen“, which means “to squirt“, since the dough is pushed and squirted through the cookie press.

Spritz cookies are a lot like sugar cookies. Eggs help spritz cookies hold their shape when baked, so they don’t crumble like their cousin shortbread cookies can. Many credit the Germans for inventing the first authentic cookie press, but others say it was more likely the Scandinavians who were the press originators. A little cookie-history controversy is always fun.

What food historians can agree on, is that the first cookie press likely dates back to the 16^th Century. If you have never used a cookie press before, now’s the time.  Holidays are stressful enough, a cookie press can make the often-involved process of cookie-making, substantially easier without sacrificing taste or appearance.

A cookie press enables you to customize the color, flavor, and shape of Spritz cookies, making it one of the easiest ways to bake a wide variety of cookie designs all at once. Use the festive disk designs to press the cookies, then top with your choice of colorful sugars and sprinkles. For my cream cheese spritz cookies, I make both chocolate and vanilla dough.

I bake the cookies off first and then decorate them later with a simple confectioners’ sugar glaze, topped with Wiltons decorating sugar, edible accents (the little stars), and my favorite pearl dusting powders. If you want to keep things super simple, spritz cookies can easily be decorated with sprinkles before baking as well.

Wilton’s Guide To Using A Cookie Press

• Fill: Before using, wash the cookie press in warm, soapy water. Dry thoroughly. Turn the plunger rod and pull until the center rod is up. Unscrew the ring at the end of the press. Shape the dough into a log and place it inside the press.
• Select the cookie disk and place it on the end of the press with a smooth side out (most models will indicate on the disk which side needs to face out). Screw ring back on press.
• Use: Hold press upright with the bottom ring resting firmly against a cooled ungreased cookie sheet. Do not tilt the press or hold it above the cookie sheet. Squeeze the trigger to form a cookie. Repeat for the remainder of the dough in press, then refill. To change cookie designs, change disks.
• Decorate: Before baking, add toppings like cherries, almonds, colorful sugars, or nonpareils. If preferred, after baking, pipe with icing or drizzle with melted Candy Melts.
• Bake: Bake cookies according to your preferred recipe.
• Clean: Twist the barrel off counterclockwise for easy cleaning. When twisting, be sure to grip the barrel and not the outer casing. Wash with warm, soapy water and dry thoroughly.

The takeaway is, that whether you are a die-hard Christmas fanatic or simply a cookie lover like myself, these easy cream cheese spritz cookies will cover everyone. In terms of what brand cookie press to buy, there are lots of options, but truthfully, I love my Wilton’s press which is super easy to use (and clean) and not outrageously expensive. If you need more guidance than that, check out this link to the top ten cookie presses by Martha Stewart. Happy baking!