A Swedish Spritz for All Seasons

I had never heard of Swedish Spritz until I met my husband. His mother is a renowned cook and baker and the Swedish Spritz cookies she made each Christmas were one of his favorite childhood memories– Since my husband’s love language is FOOD (Oh hush, it’s totally a love language, I don’t care what Gary Chapman says.) I quickly realized that if I wanted to have a successful marriage, I needed to learn how to make these cookies. Pronto.

“What exactly is Spritz?” I’m sure some of you are asking right now. “And what makes it Swedish?” I’m so glad you asked. A Swedish Spritz cookie is a delicate Scandinavian butter cookie– It’s called ‘Spritz’ because spritzen is German for ‘squirt,’ and you make these cookies by basically squirting them out of a cookie press.

And Swedish Spritz sounds soooo much better than Swedish Squirts, don’t you agree?

Fortunately, Swedish Spritz cookies are far easier to make than they look– They have graced our table nearly every Christmas since we’ve been married.

But you don’t have to limit your ‘spritzen’ to the holiday season! If you invest in a cookie press, you’ll find it has discs for all kinds of occasions– This past weekend, I decided to make Snow Day Spritz for the first time.

My cookie press also has a pumpkin shaped disc and many flower shaped discs- I’m already planning to make flower cookies in all different colors for Easter.

I love making Swedish Spritz because it’s an incredibly easy recipe to pull together, made with ingredients you probably already have on hand. All you need to buy is a cookie press. My first was from Williams-Sonoma, and it was both expensive and horrible.  It looked fancy and came in a nice box, but I had a lot of trouble getting the dough to come out evenly, and it cracked after only a few years of use.

After reading many, many cookie press reviews, I replaced it with the Kuhn Rikon Clear Cookie Press, which I’ve now had for nearly eight years and love, love, love. It’s under $20, it works perfectly, it’s incredibly easy to clean, and takes up almost no room in my cabinet.

So! Now that you know which inexpensive cookie press will give you great results, let’s turn to the dough. My mother-in-law’s recipe is absolutely delicious and the dough never fails to turn out perfect Swedish Spritz. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup butter, at room temperature
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon almond extract
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 4 cups sifted flour (Honestly, I never sift flour anymore and everything still turns out great.)
• food coloring

 
Directions

-Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

-Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, almond extract, and vanilla. Beat well.

-Add flour and baking powder. Mix until a smooth dough forms.

-At this point, your dough is ready for the cookie press– You can either decorate the cookie shapes on the baking sheet with sprinkles or add food coloring to make your cookies whatever colors you desire.

-IF ADDING FOOD COLORING: Divide dough into the number of colors you want for your cookies. (For Christmas, I divide dough in half for red and green dough). Add a few drops of food coloring to dough, stir dough until food coloring is absorbed into the dough enough that it won’t stain your hands, then knead dough with hands until food coloring is evenly distributed. Keep adding a drop or two of food coloring until dough is the color you want it to be. It will not change in color after baking.

COOKIE PRESS TIPS: When loading the cookie press chamber with dough, be sure the dough is packed into the chamber with no spaces or gaps- This will ensure that your cookies all press out evenly. You will want to practice with a few batches to get the hang of how firmly and how long you want to pull your press’s trigger in order for the cookies to come out the way you like them. Once you get the hang of it, it’s super easy.

BAKING TIP: These cookies are very delicate and burn easily. I invested in two cookie sheet-sized baking stones just for my cookies and breads, and they are worth the money– My cookies never get too brown on the bottoms when I use a baking stone, and I use mine several times a week. You will want to carefully monitor your cookies during the first few batches to determine the right amount of time for your oven. It’s better to undercook these cookies a bit than overcook them.

If I’m baking on a baking stone, seven minutes is the perfect amount of time for these cookies. On an aluminum cookie sheet, six minutes is the perfect time.

This dough makes about six dozen cookies. They are small!

Happy spritzen!