Christmas Cookies - Spritz

Why do I have a whole pound of butter on the counter do you ask? The observant reader will however notice that I am too cheap to us an entire pound of butter, there are three sticks of butter and one of margarine. The answer my friend is that I am making that classic Christmas cookie, the Spritz!
As you can see the crucial ingredient in this cookie is butter. Lots of butter. I have had them with shortening but they are quite bad, only use butter. I let the butter come to room temp, or as close as it can get before Micah falls asleep and I have time to make them.
Start by creaming the two cups of butter with one cup sugar.

Next, add one well beaten egg and one teaspoon of vanilla.

The only dry ingredient is four and a half cups flour. Mix this into the butter mixture. It may seem a little dry but that is okay, it gets more mushy as you work with it and the butter continues to warm up.

I have a hand-powered cookie press. It has its moments. The best way to do this is to have an electric press, the cookies come out a little more even and your hand does not get tired from all the hand cranking. I usually get the hang of it about the time the butter has completely warmed up and the dough gets too sticky to use. All of that aside, I think the thing was less than $10 and I have used it with varied success for about five years now.

Anyway, back to the cookies. Fill the press with dough and reassemble. With mine, the end screws off for filling.

Here is a picture of the empty press.

Here is a pan of relatively nice cookies. It is tradition to sprinkle the raw cookies with some kind of colored sugar before baking. You will notice I had a little helper, that is her finger in the bottom testing the consistency of the cookies. Bake at 400 for six to nine minuets. Watch them, the burn fast!

Here is the finished product, too tempting! They are so small I have to eat a couple, two or three spritz are like one regular cookie....right? Yum, yum.

I do have a confession, I made these at the beginning of November and froze them for Christmas. I was being proactive because I know how busy the holidays can get and this year will be interesting with two little ones around.