Third up and most popular around Christmas at our house are Spritzgebäck…. although they have always just been called “s-cookies” in our family.
| American Recipe | German Recipe (courtesy of Dr. Oetker) |
| 2 1/2 cups (300g) Flour 1/2 tsp Salt 1 Cup (225g) Butter 3/4 Cup (150g) Sugar 1 Unbeaten Egg 3/4 tsp Almond Extract | 500g (4.2 cups) Flour 1 pinch of Salt 250g (1.1 cups) Butter 250g (1.2 cups) Sugar 3 egg yolks (medium) 2 packets of Vanilla Sugar Lemon or Orange Zest 2 tsp backing powder 1 tbsp Milk |
| Cream butter and sugar. Add egg, almond extract, flour and salt gradually. Press a small amount of dough through cookie press onto baking sheet. Bake 400F in a conventional oven or 375F for convection for 6 to 8 Minutes. Watch carefully that they don’t turn too brown. “Always use butter and I often double the recipe. This has always been one of our favorite holiday cookies” – Alice Beckman | Preaheat the oven to 350 for conventional or 320 for convection. Stir butter or margarine smoothly in a mixing bowl with a mixer (mixing attachments) at the highest setting. Gradually stir in the sugar, vanilla sugar, egg yolk, salt and lemon zest. Stir until the sugar has dissolved and a bound mass is formed. Mix the flour with the baking powder and stir in 2/3 of it alternately with the milk at medium speed. Knead in the remaining flour on the work surface. Press the dough in small portions through a meat grinder with a special attachment, cut into pieces of any length and place on the baking sheet. Bake. Pastries must still be light colored, do not over brown. Insert: middle rack Baking time: about 11 minutes |
Interestingly… an older recipe card also card also called for 3 egg yolks… I wonder if this was due to the high fat scares in the 70s and 80s.
