XOXO with Sprinkles on Top

XOXO with Sprinkles on Top

February 17, 2024

Leave a trail of broken garbage disposals, hearts…and cookie presses. That’s the wisdom I received from my grandmother—wisdom for living my best life.

Okay, so my grandmother said no such thing. But that’s the grandmotherly advice I’d give if I were to ever give grandmotherly advice: break every garbage disposal and cookie press in the village—and the hearts will follow—or something like that.

In any case, the thing I’ve regretted the most (besides breaking the garbage disposal in two different houses) is breaking a cookie press. It was Christmas, 1999. Nate and I were first married, and I was so excited to buy a cheap-o cookie press and shove thick batter right through it and crank out a bunch of delicate cookies, but the #@!%% thing broke on the first try.

A few years before I met Nate, some horrible date invited me to a New Year’s-eve party where the hosts took the whole week off the day after—and sometimes other days—because they needed to recover from the amount of drinking they did. They worked at a bank. I’m not even sure what branch or if it even exists anymore—or if they even exist anymore.

In any case, the host and the hostess were lots of fun at first. She cranked out the Spritz-maker cookies by the dozens and made it look so effortless, while he lit up the grill in zero-degree weather—and then they got mean—and dinner was delayed until 2 AM because they kept forgetting where they put the ingredients. But they did manage to eventually emerge from the kitchen with dinner, and that’s when things got uncomfortably weird. They were brandishing cooking utensils in a very threatening way and dispatching orders: “Sit down now! No one’s leaving.”

I survived.

But the one thing I took away from that party was the ease and efficiency of that cookie press, and I just had to have one—but then I broke it. But this year, Nate bought me a top-of-the-line press—and I couldn’t wait to get to town.

I’m happy to report that I did NOT break it. Delightful cookies came out the other side—though it was more of an effort than I expected. I’m either just not drunk enough, or I’m not brandishing enough cooking utensils in threatening ways.

Anyhoo, the cookie sheet you use has to be ABSOLUTELY FLAT AND NEW—no warping—not covered in aluminum foil. That baking sheet has to be placed on an ABSOLUTELY FLAT surface—and you have to press down really hard—and have lots of patience—and just a knack for engineering, maybe?

In an effort to re-create the cream cheese dough recipe Nate loves from his memories of his mom’s cookie-press baking, I chose a cream cheese recipe from the cookie press instruction manual and followed it:

1 cup of butter, chopped into cubes

3 oz of cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat because that’s what they had on sale)

1 cup of granulated sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 egg yolk

2 ¼ cups of flour

¼ teaspoon of salt

You’re supposed to cream the butter and cream cheese together, then add the egg yolk and vanilla. Gradually add the flour and salt. Press the mixture through the cookie press and sprinkle with sprinkles or colored sugar crystals.

Bake at 350 for around 8-10 minutes.

Results: The cookies had a wonderful tanginess from the cream cheese. I may need to experiment with different baking pans and techniques for pressing the cookies to make the process more fun and efficient, but until then, Nate and Alex might be making the Spritz cookies for the holidays, while I live a dream only a grandmother of my dreams could wish for me: breaking new things to my heart’s content.

Your Turn: Have you ever used a cookie press? What’s your secret?