Baking & Pastry | Christmas & Yule Recipes | Cookies & Candy | Design | Holiday Recipes | RECIPES | Small Bites & Snacks
BAKE: Yule Love these Homemade Spritz Cookies (no cookie press needed)
- What do I need to make these spritz cookies?
- How to Make Homemade Spritz Cookie Dough
- Piping & Decorating your Spritz Cookies
- Hand-Piped Holiday Spritz Cookies
A classic addition to any festive holiday cookie plate, these delicately flavored homemade spritz butter cookies are far more delicious than the bland store bought ones. These are buttery and simply rich, with a hint of vanilla and almond flavor.
You definitely won’t be tempted to throw them out to make room in the cookie tin for more sewing supplies (unlike some of those other commercially made butter cookies that look better than they taste).
They’re so good, and you can decorate these spritz cookies with colored sugars, sprinkles, or tint the dough, or just keep them elegantly plain (but definitely not boring). They’re one of my favorite holiday cookies, but you can bake them any time of year!
Once you try these, yule want to make these homemade spritz cookies for your Christmas cookie plates every holiday season!
A note on baking these with children:
Holiday baking is one of my favorite traditions, and these are one of my favorite cookies to bake (and eat!). I started making these when I was just a kid, and it’s a great activity to get kids involved in the kitchen, encourage creativity, and work on fine motor control skills.
However, if you don’t have a cookie press, an adult or older children may have to pipe the cookies and let the little kids decorate them. The pastry bag can be hard for little hands to squeeze, since the dough is much firmer than icing!
What do I need to make these spritz cookies?
Pastry Bag:
- While you can certainly use a cookie press for these if you have one, all you really need to make homemade spritz cookies is a sturdy piping bag.
- I recommend Ateco or another sturdy, lined washable fabric pastry bag.
- Plastic piping bags don’t really work well for this recipe, as the dough is stiffer than icing and takes more pressure to pipe, which will burst or distort your plastic piping bag, or force the tip out rather than the dough through the tip.
Piping Tip(s):
- A large open star tip is the most versatile.
- You can also play around with other piping tips (flat ribbon cookies are very nice) to get different effects
- But you can make a ton of different shapes and designs with just the basic open star tip!
Getting the temperature of the dough right is important for easy piping. Too warm, and the texture of the final cookies can suffer, but too cold, and it will tear your piping bag or be exhausting to try to pipe!
Err on the side of warmer when you mix your dough as you can always chill it if it’s too soft (make sure your butter is softened and your eggs are at room temperature).
Baking Sheets & Liners:
- I use uncoated aluminum half-sheets like these, but you can use what you have or prefer.
- It’s best if you can line uncoated baking sheets with silicone baking mats, but you can also use parchment paper, or make sure to remove the cookies while they’re still slightly warm so they don’t stick.
- If you use parchment, you can use a tiny dollop of dough piped in the corner between the paper and the baking sheet to stick it to the pan. You will have to soak or scrub this off, but it sticks the parchment to the pan so it’s easier to pipe cookies onto it without it sliding around.
- Silicone mats are heavier and a bit sticky, and will stay in place on their own.
How to Make Homemade Spritz Cookie Dough
Cream butter and sugar:
- Cream softened butter either by hand or with the paddle attachment of a mixer until smooth, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add sugar.
- Continue creaming the butter and sugar together, stopping a few times to scrape the sides and horn of the bowl (if applicable), until the mixture is light and fluffy.
Add egg & flavorings:
- Add the salt and the egg yolks, one at a time, and the vanilla and almond extract.
- Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix again until the mixture is well-emulsified.
Add flour:
- Add the flour, one cup at a time, mixing only a few seconds between each addition, stopping to scrape the sides and paddle of the mixer.
- If mixing by hand, fold the flour gently in to the wet ingredients.
- Mix just until well combined and then stop – over-mixing makes tough cookies.
Piping & Decorating your Spritz Cookies
- You can dye the dough festive colors with food-safe coloring.
- Divide the dough into several bowls and tint some and leave others plain for more variety on your cookie tray.
- I like to do a big batch of green spritz dough for making wreaths and trees, and divide the rest between plain dough and red dough for stars, shells, and accents.
- Yellow for stars, shells, and bell shapes is also a nice contrast if you want more variety.
- Piping techniques for various cookie shapes:
- To pipe the wreathes, either pipe overlapping small stars in a ring, or a running shell motif.
- Piped trees are easiest to make with small overlapping star piping in a conical shape, but you can also experiment with running shell patterns.
- Decorating tips for your spritz cookies:
- Decorate them with sprinkles or colorful sugars before you bake. Use the same color sugar or contrasting color for more variety.
- Drizzle with royal icing after the cookies cool, and leave plain or add sprinkles on top.
- Dip some of the cookies halfway in melted chocolate or almond bark candy coating.
- Or just leave them plain. It’s up to you!
- It’s okay if they’re not Pinterest-perfect and all identical… this is part of their charm. Just make sure the cookies on each baking sheet are similar in size and thickness so that they bake at the same rate.
Hand-Piped Holiday Spritz Cookies
A classic addition to any festive holiday cookie plate, these delicately flavored homemade spritz butter cookies are far more delicious than the bland store bought ones. And they're piped, so you don't need a cookie press to make them!
Ingredients
- 2 cups butter one pound, softened
- 1 ½ cups sugar
- 3 large egg yolks (or 4 medium yolks)
- ½ tsp salt
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp almond extract (if omitted, double the vanilla)
- 4 cups all-purpose flour
- food coloring (optional, add drop by drop until desired color is reached)
- sprinkles, colored or sparkle sugar (optional)
Instructions
Make Spritz Cookie Dough
- Cream softened butter either by hand or with the paddle attachment of a mixer until smooth, scrape down the sides of the bowl, and add sugar.
- Continue creaming the butter and sugar together, stopping a few times to scrape the sides and horn of the bowl (if applicable), until the mixture is light and fluffy.
- Add the salt and the egg yolks, one at a time, and the vanilla and almond extract. Scrape the sides of the bowl and mix again until the mixture is well-emulsified.
- Add the flour, one cup at a time, mixing only a few seconds between each addition, stopping to scrape the sides and paddle of the mixer. If mixing by hand, fold the flour gently in to the wet ingredients. Mix until well combined.
- Divide dough into several bowls- one for each color you plan to dye your base dough. I like to do a big batch of green for making wreaths and trees, and divide the rest between plain and red for stars and accents. Yellow for stars and bells is also a nice addition if you want more variety.
- Add a spoonful of dough to your piping bag fitted with a large star tip (½" diameter open star tip is a good one to start with) and check the consistency. If the dough is too stiff to pipe easily, you can add up to a few tablespoons of milk to thin the dough slightly.
Pipe & Decorate the Cookies
- When the dough consistency is right, fill your piping bag(s) no more than two-thirds full and pipe your cookies.
- Preheat the oven to 350℉ (180℃ or gas mark 4).
- Get your cookie sheets ready and line them with nonstick silicone baking liners or parchment paper so the cookies don't stick to the sheets and break.
- If you have multiple bags and tips you can fill them all at once, or do one color at a time and wash the bag between batches. I like to pipe the green dough first into wreath shapes and trees, then decorate them with the red and white doughs and pipe plenty of contrasting cookies to make a colorful cookie plate.
- To pipe the wreath cookies, pipe a series of small stars in a circle, or overlapping shell shapes. Experiment with different piping techniques to find the look you like the best and stick with it.
- Try to keep the size of the cookies consistent on a single baking sheet so that they cook evenly (don't pipe tiny stars on the same sheet as a large cookie, or they'll be done at different times).
- If you are using decorative sugar or sprinkles, add these to the dough before baking. You can also leave them plain, and decorate them with royal icing or melted chocolate after they have baked and cooled.
Bake the Spritz Cookies
- Bake for 9-12 minutes, or until the cookies are just set to the touch but not browning.
- Remove from oven and let cool for a few minutes, then use a thin metal spatula to transfer to wire racks to cool.
- If you are doing a big batch and need to reuse cookie sheets, make sure the sheets cool between batches before piping more cookies.
Tried this recipe?Let us know how it was!
Loved this? Try some of our other holiday baking recipes!
All Baking & Pastry Recipes
- Perfect All-Butter Flaky Pastry Crust
- The Great Pumpkin Spritz
- How to Make Old-Fashioned Pinwheel Cookies
- Yule Moon Crescent Cookies
- Spekulatius (or Spekulaas) Shaped Spice Cookie
- Soft Blackstrap Molasses Spice Cookies
- Nana’s Orange Creamsicle Dream Cookies
- Spiced Cranberry Nut Biscotti
- Cinnamon Chocolate Chip Walnut Biscotti
- How to Make a Classic Southern Pecan Pie
- Cranberry Apple Crumble Pie
- Easy Eggnog Pound Cake