Every year on a Saturday close to Christmas, some of my family members, a family friend, and I continue to carry on our grandmother’s yearly tradition of making spritz cookies. The spritz cookie is a thin butter cookie that is made with a cookie press. Yesterday was our yearly cookie making event that includes a pre-cookie making dinner, wine, and lots of talking. This year we broke our record of seven batches of spritz and made eight batches. We had a real production line going with each person doing the same job througout the day, which made things move along much faster. A couple of years ago I was removed from the job of mixing the ingredients just because I forgot to add one of the essential ingredients. Naturally I was not the one mixing the ingredients yesterday. At the end of the day we each load the cookies up into containers and take them home. Most of my spritz cookies will be given away at a cookie exchange at work tomorrow. Below is the recipe for the spritz cookies. ~merry carter~

Spritz Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
• 3/4 cup sugar
• Dash salt
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat the oven to 375˚F.  Sift together the flour and baking powder. In a bowl, cream together the butter, sugar, and salt. Beat in the egg and vanilla until well mixed. Add the dry ingredients, a little at a time. Put the dough in a cookie press using the 1/8-inch ridged cookie design disk and press the dough out onto cold, unbuttered cookie sheets. Bake until set but not brown, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and cut the strips into 3-inch lengths while they are still hot.

Kim Bonde and Wendy Howe mix the ingredients

Nancy Mueller squeezes the spritz dough onto cookie sheets

One sheet ready for the oven

The finished product