It’s Christmas cookie season, and what is more festive than these perfectly petite classic vanilla spritz cookies? A sweet, vanilla and almond dough is pressed through my favorite cookie press to create adorably festive snack-size cookies that are perfect for cookie trays, holiday parties, cookie exchanges, or just because you’re craving a sweet Christmas treat.
As an added bonus, these spritz cookies are very easy to make. The dough is simple and there’s zero dough chilling time required. Actually, you should NOT chill this cookie dough (as mentioned in Tips & Tricks at the end of the recipe). Each sheet pan of cookies takes only 8 minutes to bake, so you can have them ready super quickly.
Read on for the recipe so you too can enjoy these classic Christmas cookies during the holiday season.
Classic Christmas Spritz Cookies
These snack-size vanilla spritz cookies are buttery, soft, and the perfect classic Christmas cookie to make for your next holiday party or cookie exchange. They're also very easy to make, requiring zero dough chilling time and only 8 minutes to bake per sheet pan.
Print
Pin
Rate
Save
Servings: 72 spritz cookies
Equipment (Shop on Amazon)
- Kuhn Rikon Cookie Press (I love this one!!!)
- Half Sheet Pan ungreased, no parchment or silicone baking mat
Ingredients
- 1 cup salted butter at room temperature
- ¾ cup white granulated sugar
- ¼ tsp salt
- 2 egg yolks
- 1 tsp vanilla extract (shop my favorite on Amazon)
- 1 tsp almond extract
- 2¼ cups all-purpose flour spooned and leveled
- Food dye (optional)
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350°F.
- Using a hand mixer, cream together the salted butter, white granulated sugar, and salt until just combined (approx. 1-2 minutes). Add the two egg yolks, vanilla extract, and almond extract. Mix on low/medium speed until well combined. Optional- If you would like to make an entire batch of cookies using one food dye color, you can add the dye to the wet ingredients now. Keep in mind that the color will become duller after you add the flour. If you'd like to make multiple colors of cookies out of one batch, you'll follow step 4 below.1 cup salted butter, ¾ cup white granulated sugar, ¼ tsp salt, 2 egg yolks, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1 tsp almond extract
- Add the flour to your wet ingredients and mix on medium speed until combined. The dough will initially look shaggy/crumbly but will become smoother and begin to clump together as you mix it. Make sure to scrape your bowl with a spatula spoon.2¼ cups all-purpose flour
- Optional- If you want to make cookies of various colors out of one batch of dough, split your dough into a few separate bowls. Add your desired amount of food coloring into each and mix until just combined with the hand mixer. If you'd like to make marble-looking cookies, grab a portion of your cookie dough and flatten it into a small rectangle. Add four to five drops of food coloring onto the dough and fold it 4-5 times to work the dye into the dough without fully mixing it in. You should be able to see some streaks of the dye peeking through as you fold it in. Roll the dough into a log shape and load it into your cookie press- and you should end up with marble-like cookies!Food dye
- Place the plate for your desired spritz design into your cookie press and secure it. Load the press with dough and then press your cookies onto an ungreased half sheet pan, leaving about 1½" - 2" between cookies. You must use an ungreased pan (no parchment or silicone baking mats) in order for the cookies to stick. Depending on the size and shape of the cookies, I typically fit anywhere between 15-20 cookies on the pan at once.
- Bake the spritz cookies at 350° for 8 minutes. When the cookies are done, they should no longer look shiny and the outer edges should just barely be turning a very light shade of golden brown. You do NOT want the cookies to brown very much at all, as this is a sign they are overbaked and will turn out crispy.
- Allow the cookies to cool on the sheet pan for 5-10 minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack using a thin spatula. Let them cool completely before serving. Store the cookies in an airtight container, taking extra care when stacking them if you use a delicate spritz design.
Notes from the Happy To Be Here Kitchen
Note 1. Yield: Using my favorite spritz cookie shapes, this recipe makes approximately six dozen spritz cookies. However, this will differ depending on the shapes you use and the press you have. Some presses allow you to select the thickness for each cookie, different designs make larger or smaller cookies, and presses themselves vary in size- so the total yield may vary.
Note 2. Why Two Egg Yolks? The extra fat provided by using two egg yolks instead of one egg will give you more tender, softer spritz cookies. And, yes, there is a noticeable difference! I have made them both ways and much prefer the two egg yolk variety.
Tips & Tricks for Perfect Spritz Cookies:
If your cookies aren't sticking... make sure you are pressing them onto a cool sheet pan (not one still warm from the oven). Try throwing your pan into the freezer for a couple minutes if the cookie dough won't stick.
You want the spritz dough to be soft... so it will stick to the pan, which is why there is no dough chilling time required for these cookies. In fact, you should NOT chill the dough at all. Additionally, make sure your butter is softened to room temperature before adding it to the dough. If you forget to leave it out, microwave it at half power until softened but not liquidy.
A good cookie press is key... my favorite cookie press is this one from Kuhn Rikon, which you can shop on Amazon. It's easy to load with dough, you can see how much is left in the barrel, and changing the design plates is easy. Plus it feeds out the perfect amount of dough onto the sheet pan, in my opinion.
Use a light colored baking sheet... for these spritz cookies, as dark baking sheets promote browning. These cookies should be pale and barely golden brown on the bottom when done. Since they are so small, the cookies can easily overbake and become crispy.
Other ways to decorate... drizzle these cookies with chocolate, press mini chocolate chips in the center, drizzle them with icing, or add sprinkles/sanding sugar. I typically serve these plain, but if you want to add sprinkles you'll need to brush or drizzle on icing or corn syrup in order for the sprinkles to stick after baking.
Did you try these Christmas spritz cookies?
If you did, let me know how you liked them down below by leaving a rating and a comment. Then, check out some of my other favorite Christmas cookies…
Old-Fashioned Soft and Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookies
My Favorite Chocolate Peppermint Crinkle Cookies
Perfect Peanut Butter Blossom Cookies
Pin the image below to come back to this spritz cookie recipe later…
…and follow along on Pinterest (@happytobehereblog) for more recipes!
