Zestful Eats

Spritz cookies are cookies that have to be pushed thru a cookie press or piped out. You can buy a cookie press for pretty cheap nowadays from any baking goods store or big supermarkets.

Chocolate Spritz Cookie
Makes 7-8 dozen cookies.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/4 cups (or 284 g) butter
• 1 cup sugar
• 2/3 cup brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 2/3 cup cocoa
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F/190°C.

2. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter and sugars at medium high speed until light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add vanilla.

Creaming the butters and sugars together

3. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt. Add flour mixture gradually and beat well.

This is how the dough looks like after 1/3 of the flour

4. The dough should be soft but not too sticky. It should have a mousse-like consistency. Using a spoon, put cookie dough into cookie press or piping bag. Press cookie dough onto cool ungreased cookie sheets.

Pressing out the dough using the press

5. Bake at 375°F/190°C. for 10-12 minutes. Remove from sheet and cool. Store in airtight container at cool room temperature for several weeks or freeze for two months.

Nicely packed cookies

I bought a cookie press. Yey! Been wanting to have one for some time now. Finally got my mom to get me one. Its to make cookies fast because it can pump out cookies and also do icing. This one i bought has 10 cutout disks to make cookies and 6 icing tips for decorating cakes. Its made out of plastic and has a metal rod with notches.

This is how it looks like when I take it apart. What you do is pull back the metal rod at the squeeze part which has a handle. Then choose a disk (I showed two there) and attach it to the tube using the red ring at one end. Then fill the tube with your dough. Screw on the handle part and squeeze it to push out the cookie.

The cookie dough has to be one especially made for a cookie press - its usually softer and the quantity of butter is more - and is also called a spritz cookie. You must also bake it on a cookie sheet that is ungreased and unlined because if not the cookie wont stick to the pan after you press it.

I bought my for quite cheap, only RM11.90 at Tesco, Mutiara Damansara. Recipe tomorrow!

I stumbled upon this blog of recipes by Aunty Yochana the other day while I was blog surfing and came across this recipe for Brownie Biscuits. Now I know you’re thinking like what?? but think of it this way. Brownies are made of chocolate and nuts..now imagine that in a biscuit. Yums! So I saved the recipe.

Last nite, I couldn’t sleep and so as usual I decided to bake. I peeked into my fridge and found that I had all the ingredients. So at 5am, I proceeded to bake my biscuits.

Brownie Biscuits

200 gm. Butter
180 gm. Sugar <– I used castor
1 egg
100 gm. Walnuts or Cashew nuts <–  I used walnuts + almonds
1/2 tsp. cinnamon powder
320 gm. Plain flour
1/2 tsp. baking powder
50 gm. cornflour
20 gm. cocoa powder
Some almond flakes or sunflower seeds for decoration
Some beaten egg for glazing

Method:

(1) Cream butter and sugar till sugar dissolves.

(2) Add in egg and beat till well mixed.

(3) Add in blended walnuts or cashew nuts, flour, cocoa powder, baking powder and cornflour. I just measured everything in the measuring scale all together. Less washing.

(4) Blend into a dough. Rest for 10 mins.

(5) Roll dough between two sheets of plastic and then cut out using cookie cutters. I recommend using greaseproof paper instead of plastic wrap because its very leceh to use plastic.

(6) Place cookies on tray, glaze with beaten eggs and then sprinkle some almond flakes or sunflower seeds on top. If you’re lazy like me, don’t need to glaze & put almond flakes.

(7) Bake at 170C for about 15 mins. or till cooked.

(8) Cool cookies before storing into containers.

I forgot to take pics of the baked biscuits so here’s the pic from Aunty Yochana’s blog. Its quite nice, not too hard or too soft. Very easy to do also. Perhaps would be superb with chocolate chips. More chocolate makes everything better.