The baking has begun

I have started my Christmas baking. Yesterday K and I made cookie press cookies or Spritz cookies. They are so good, they are similar to a shortbread and sugar cookie but nicely shaped by being pressed out of a cookie press.

The recipe is as follows:

If you don't have a cookie press, you can also roll them out and cut out shapes with cookie cutters.

Ingredients

1 cup soft butter
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 tsp salt

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and vanilla. Combine flour and salt in a medium bowl and gradually add to butter mixture. If dough is hard to handle, put in refrigerator for about 20 minutes to make it easier to handle. I find that it is good as is, and it works well in the press. If it is too hard, it will be a bugger to press out the cookies. Fill cookie press with dough, and add shaped disc. Press on to an ungreased cookie sheet about 1 1/2 inches apart. Bake about 10 minutes or just until set. I baked them for about 8 minutes and they were good, 10 minutes made them too brown for my liking. Remove cookies from sheet and cool on wire rack.

Makes approximatly 4 dozen cookies.

I have kept some out for eating now, and froze the rest for eating around the holidays or when guests stop by. Next on the list is Shortbread cookies. Mmmm, my favorite.