The holidays aren’t nearly complete without a household full of cookies. When you’ve got a huge number to bake for, speed things up with pretty, minty and chocolate covered Peppermint Spritz Cookies.
Welcome to Day Three of Christmas Week. This event is hosted by Kim of Cravings of a Lunatic and Susan of The Girl in the Little Red Kitchen. We hope to inspire you to break out those holiday sprinkles and get your bake on!
Thanks to our sponsors for Christmas Week. Anolon is donating a 5-piece Bakeware Set. Swing by their Facebook Page to show them some love. We also have Ball supplying us with 4 sets of Jars in their gorgeous Green Heritage Color. Swing by their Ball Canning and Recipes Facebook Page to say hello.
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In my humble opinion, holiday baking isn’t truly complete without a massive amount of cookies. One of my favorite things growing up was getting in the kitchen with my mom and baking our Chanukah cookies for the season. We’d always get started early and pack them away in our second freezer in the garage (in which, I’d promptly sneak frozen cookies for weeks – the obsession started young folks).
Cookies were the same every year, batches of chocolate chip, my mom’s amazing rugelach and cut out sugar cookies decorated with some Chanukah flair.
There’d be other desserts floating around, but those cookies would never last once they were put on the table at our annual Chanukah party.
Mom just had the special touch, especial her sugar cookies, she rolled them pretty much perfect every time.
Now take me as an adult for example? I’ve got those chocolate chip cookies down stat but butter or sugar cookies? That’s an entirely different story.
It falls into the realm of pie dough, if I have to roll it, I don’t like it.
Maybe I didn’t pay enough attention as kid, I was too busy eating the cookie dough or warm cookies that already came out of the oven.
Who knows?
What I do know, is that I finally found an answer to get my buttery, sugary cookie fix without rolling and cutting those darn things out. Spritz cookies friends, and I bet you have one of those cookie presses hidden away in the back of your kitchen cabinets too. The genius of spritz cookies is that you can bang out tons of cookies in a short amount of time too. It’s perfect if you are baking for a huge party or giving them away as a gift.
The base recipe is the same and the flavor spectrum has endless possibilities. A little bit of melted chocolate between two of them make the perfect sandwich cookie or even half of it dipped in chocolate for a special touch. Whatever you do, don’t forget the sprinkles!
Ingredients
- 2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
- 1/2 cup cane sugar
- 2 large egg yolks, room temperature
- 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
- optional: sprinkles, green gel food dye, 4-6 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, melted for dipping
Instructions
- Chill 2-3 ungreased cleaned cookie sheets and heat your oven to 375 degrees
- In a medium bowl combine the flour and salt.
- In the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment cream the butter and sugar for 1-2 minutes.
- Mix in the egg yolks and peppermint extract. If using add a drop or two of gel food dye at this point until you have your desired color.
- Beat in the flour in 2 parts on medium low speed until combined. The dough should be very soft.
- Choose the disc of your choice and insert it into your cookie press and add a portion of the dough.
- Press the cookies directly onto the cookie sheet and place into the refrigerator to chill for 5-10 minutes.
- Remove, decorate the tops of the cookies with sprinkles and bake for 7-8 minutes.
- Let the cookies cool for a few minutes before removing to a cooling rack to cool completely.
- If you need to bake again on the same tray, let it cool completely before pressing another batch of cookies on it.
- If dipping in chocolate, melt the chocolate over a double boiler and dip half the cookie in the melted chocolate and let set on parchment or wax paper. Use a small offset spatula to spread a thin amount on the bottom of the cookie to make chocolate sandwich cookies.
- To speed up the cooling process when chocolate dipped you can put them in the fridge or freezer for 10-15 minutes.
- Store in an airtight container for 3-4 days (if they last that long)!
Swing by all the participants to see what they’ve been whipping up for the holidays:
- Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies by Cravings of a Lunatic
- Peppermint Spritz Cookies by The Girl In The Little Red Kitchen
- Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls by Dinners, Dishes, and Desserts
- Scandinavian Fruit Soup by Farm Fresh Feasts
- Egg Nog Pound Cake by My Catholic Kitchen
- Coquito Cheesecake Flan by Mind Over Batter
- Mulled Wine Fruit Gums by Food Lust People Love
- Soft Caramels by That Skinny Chick Can Bake
- Eggnog Cinnamon Rolls with Cream Cheese Eggnog Icing by From Gate to Plate
Don’t forget about our Christmas Week giveaway! We have some great prizes and it’s open to enter until December 26th. Just follow the rafflecopter instructions below to enter. U.S. Residents only, age 18+.
Take a look at what you can win!
Giveaway Prizes include:
- One 5 piece set of Anolon Bakeware Set
- Two Sets of Ball Heritage Collection Quart Jars (each set includes 6 jars)
- Two Sets of Ball Heritage Collection Pint Jars (each set includes 6 jars)
- One Set of 1 Dozen Assorted Cookie Sampler Box from The Girl In The Little Red Kitchen Bake Shop
- Two Sets of Brownie Brittle Snack Sampler (each set includes One 5-ounce bag of each flavour)
Plus 1 Copy of each of these cookbooks:
- One Autographed Copy of Make Ahead Bread by Donna Currie
- One Copy of The Mixer Bible by Meredith Deeds
- One Copy of 175 Best Babycakes Cake Pop Recipes by Kathy Moore and Roxanne Wyss
- One Copy of 175 Best Mini Pie Recipes by Julie-Anne Hession
- One Copy of The 250 Best Brownies, Bars & Squares by Ester Brody
- One Copy of Oatrageous Oatmeals by Kathy Hester
- One Copy of Adventures in Comfort Food by Kerry Alteiro
- One Copy of Food Truck Road Trip by Kim Pham
- One Copy of Decadent Gluten-Free Vegan Baking by Cara Reed
- One Copy of 100 Juices, Smoothies and Healthy Snacks by Emily von Euw
- One Copy of CopyKat coms Dining Out at Home Cookbook Recipes by Stephanie Manley
- One Copy of Copykat.com’s Dining Out At Home Cookbook 2 by Stephanie Manley
I need to find my spritz gun and dust it off! My family would love these mint-alcious cookies (especially the double dose sandwich version!).
omigosh these cookies are so pretty and they look suuuuper buttery and delicious!
Orange spritz cookies. I use the star disk on my cookie press to make sticks, and then dunk the ends of the baked cookies in chocolate (they look a little like matches.
I actually have a cookie press that I completely forget about! Gotta haul that thing out this week! These cookies are so pretty!
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I do indeed have a cookie press that gets way too little use. I don’t remember the last time it came out of the box, in fact. Time to rectify that with your lovely peppermint spritz cookies, Susan!
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These look just like cookies my husband’s aunt makes every year! And they are sooooo good, I look forward to them every year. I’ll have to try your recipe so I don’t have to wait for hers!
Chocolate chip cookies are my favorite
I love to bake Swedish Christmas bread.
Favorite thing to bake is cranberry orange bread during the holidays.
Favorite thing to bake is cranberry orange bread during the holidays.
I like to bake Russian Nut Balls. Also about 10 other kinds of cookies, all Gluten Free.
I love baking cookies. My son has started to take some of that over because he wants to bake them now.
I will have to pull out the cookie press as well.