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Classic Spritz Cookies

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  • Prep 1 hr 5 min
  • Total 1 hr 15 min
  • Servings 72
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If you’re looking for a new favorite Christmas cookie, we’ve got you covered with this old fashioned spritz cookies recipe.

The word “spritz” comes from the German word spritzen which means “to squirt.” This refers to squirting or pushing the buttery cookie dough through a cookie press.

A cookie press typically comes with several different metal plates, which means it’s ultra-easy to create many different designs with one easy to prepare cookie dough. This makes our recipe the perfect choice for anyone who wants to add more variety to their Christmas cookie trays.

One of the many reasons spritz cookies have become a Christmas staple is how easy it is for kids to join in on the fun. Your little elves can help at every step of the way. After making the easy to prep dough they can create an array of shapes from Christmas trees, to festive snowflakes, or even bells with an easy-to-use cookie press. These cookies are so much fun to make that your family will be requesting them every holiday season.

Need other festive cookie ideas? Take a peek into our Christmas Cookie Headquarters.

By Betty Crocker Kitchens
Updated Jul 16, 2024
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How To Make Spritz Cookies

This spritz cookie recipe is easy to make with ingredients you’re likely to already have on hand. We will show you step-by-step how to make these Christmas spritz cookies. So, no matter if this is your first time or you’re an experienced baker and master at using a cookie press, the results will be beautiful and tasty every time. Refer to the full recipe for all the specifics, but here’s a sneak peek on how to make this recipe for spritz cookies.

Make the Dough

This spritz cookie recipe starts by mixing butter, sugar, and egg with the dry ingredients.

Fill the Cookie Press

A cookie press is a pastry tool that forms cookies by pressing the cookie dough through a metal plate with holes. The shape of the hole is what creates the spritz cookies designs. Using a cookie press is what gives spritz cookies their unique look.

Fill the cylinder of the cookie press with the dough and follow the manufacturer’s direction to press the cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet.

The best spritz cookie recipe will make enough dough to give you the chance to change the metal plates of the cookies press to get creative with your designs.

Decorate the Cookies

Before baking, if desired, sprinkle currants, candies, colored sugar, or other toppings onto your cookies.

Bake

Bake the cookies and cool them on a rack. Enjoy!

Check out our collection of spritz cookies for even more ideas.

How to Decorate Spritz Cookies

We think any good spritz cookie recipe should include some decorating ideas, so we’ve included several to get you started.

One of the easiest ways to add a little pizzazz to your spritz cookie recipe is to simply add a few drops of gel food coloring to the dough as you’re mixing it together. Christmas trees are a popular shape for a traditional spritz cookies recipe, and green food coloring in the dough will bring those cookies to life. After the dough is pressed out onto the cookie sheet, you can “decorate” your trees with colorful candy ornaments.

Decorate with nuts, dried fruit, colored sugar, or sprinkles onto or pressed into the unbaked cookies once they’re on the cookie sheet. If you’d like to add some decoration to the cookies after they’ve baked, just dab a bit of corn syrup onto the cookie and press edible glitter, red cinnamon candies, nonpareils, currants, or any other decoration you desire. Melted dark, milk, semisweet, or white chocolate can also be drizzled over baked cooled cookies.

Different Types of Spritz Cookies

While these Classic Spritz Cookies are a great go-to spritz cookie recipe, the world of spritz cookies is large with many different varieties. Here are some to have in your back pocket.

Chocolate Spritz Reindeer Cookies: For some fun Christmas spritz cookie magic, we have a delightful reindeer spritz cookie, using a chocolate cookie dough with pretzels and candies for the ears and eyes.

Snickerdoodle Spritz Cookies: If you’re looking for the iconic cinnamon sugar cookie flavor of a snickerdoodle, but you also want the “wow” factor of a traditional spritz cookie recipe, we have the best spritz cookie recipe for you with these Snickerdoodle Spritz Cookies.

Our Classic Spritz Cookie recipe is so versatile that you can change their flavor with the simple addition of one or two extra ingredients.

Spice Spritz: Stir in 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg, and 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice with the flour.

Chocolate Spritz: Stir 2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled, into the butter-sugar mixture. Omit food color.

Eggnog Spritz: Substitute rum extract for the almond extract or vanilla for a fun holiday twist.

Here are some more spritz cookie ideas.

Storing Your Spritz Cookies

While you may not have too many leftovers from this spritz cookies recipe, you’ll want to store what you do have either at room temperature or in the freeze r. We don’t recommend refrigerating them, (blame it on the butter) they will just get dry. Spritz cookies are best kept at room temperature or frozen to enjoy later.

Here’s how to store any leftovers. Place cookies in between layers of waxed paper to protect decorations and frosting.

Room Temperature: Store at room temperature in a loosely covered container.

Freezer: Store in airtight containers. Unfrosted cookies can be stored for up to 12 months in the freezer. Frosted cookies can be stored for up to 3 months.

For the best taste, cookies should be removed from their container to thaw at room temperature before eating.

Ingredients

  • 1 cup butter, softened
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 2 1/4 cups Gold Medal™ all-purpose flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon almond extract or vanilla
  • Food color, if desired
  • Currants, raisins, candies, colored sugar, finely chopped nuts, candied fruit or fruit peel, if desired
Make With
Gold Medal Flour

Steps

  • 1
    Heat oven to 400°F.
  • 2
    Beat butter and sugar in large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed, or mix with spoon.
  • 3
    Stir in flour, salt, egg, almond extract and a few drops of food color.
  • 4
    Place dough in cookie press. Form desired shapes on ungreased cookie sheet.
  • 5
    Decorate with colored sugar, candies, finely chopped nuts, raisins or currants, candied fruit or fruit peel, if desired.
  • 6
    Bake 5 to 8 minutes or until set but not brown. Immediately remove from cookie sheet to wire rack.
  • 7
    To decorate cookies after baking, use a drop of corn syrup to attach decorations to cookies.

Tips from the Betty Crocker Kitchens

  • tip 1
    Hand-wash your cookie press, using a small bottle brush to be sure you’ve cleaned all the nooks and crannies. Allow all the parts to dry completely before storing them away.
  • tip 2
    It’s best to use a recipe that’s been well-tested for cookie presses. The dough, which is quite buttery, needs to be soft and just the right consistency to easily press through the design plates. Avoid adding ingredients like nuts or dried fruits.
  • tip 3
    There's no need to grease the baking sheet as the buttery cookies should easily release from the pan.
  • tip 4
    Butter is responsible for the tender, rich texture and flavor of these incredible cookies.
  • tip 5
    Because spritz cookies don’t spread a lot you can press them out more closely (about 1-1/2 inches apart) on the baking sheet. Using a press can take some practice, but just hold the press flat on the baking sheet without tilting it. Use consistent, even pressure to push the dough onto the pan—don’t overload each cookie.
  • tip 6
    Spice Spritz: Stir in 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg and 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice with the flour.
  • tip 7
    Chocolate Spritz: Stir 2 ounces unsweetened baking chocolate, melted and cooled, into butter-sugar mixture. Omit food color.
  • tip 8
    Substitute rum extract for the almond extract or vanilla for a fun holiday twist.
  • tip 9
    After baking, spread cooled cookies with Butter Rum Glaze: Melt 1/4 cup butter or margarine in 1-quart saucepan; remove from heat. Stir in 1 cup powdered sugar and 1 teaspoon rum extract. Stir in 1 to 2 tablespoons hot water until glaze is spreadable. Tint glaze with food color to match cookies.
  • tip 10
    Before baking spruce up your Spritz with: Currants, raisins, small candies, colored sugar, chopped nuts, slices of candied fruits or candied fruit peels arranged in festive patterns. After baking decorate with: Edible glitter, colored sugar, nonpareils, red cinnamon candies or finely chopped nuts. A drop of corn syrup will hold the decorations in place nicely.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Do Spritz Cookies Taste Like?

This traditional spritz cookie recipe has only a few ingredients, butter and sugar being two of the most important. With that said, these cookies taste like a combination of sugar cookies and buttery shortbread cookies.

Of course, there are many variations of spritz cookie recipes and each will likely introduce other ingredients and flavors.

Chocolate is often added to spritz cookies to take them in a completely different direction flavor-wise. Spices, like cinnamon and/or nutmeg are also often included. While nuts make a nice addition to spritz cookies, they tend to get stuck in the cookie press, so they are best added after the dough has been pressed onto the cookie sheet.

What Is the Difference Between Spritz and Butter Cookies?

Butter cookies and spritz cookies are very similar, usually containing the same ingredients, just in different proportions. That difference is what gives the two types of cookies their unique characteristics.

While butter cookies don’t spread as much as sugar cookies or snickerdoodles, they do spread slightly more than spritz cookies due to a higher amount of sugar.

Butter cookies, unlike spritz cookies, can also be dropped by the spoonful onto the cookie sheet before baking, whereas spritz cookies must be pressed out using a cookie press.

They are similar in they both contain eggs. Eggs are helpful when it comes to creating a pliable dough that holds its shape well.

What Is the Difference Between Spritz and Shortbread Cookies?

Like butter cookies, the main difference between shortbread cookies and spritz cookies lies in the ratio of butter, sugar, and flour.

Shortbread has a high proportion of butter to sugar. In fact, butter really is the star in a good shortbread cookie, so it’s worth using the best butter you possibly can when baking shortbread cookies.

Shortbread cookies are crumbly and crisp when baked with a melt-in-your-mouth texture.

Spritz cookies have most of the same ingredients as shortbread cookies, but also include egg. The addition of this ingredient allows spritz cookie dough to be more pliable and easier to use in a cookie press. It also helps the cookie to maintain its shape after baking.

Nutrition

45 Calories, 3 g Total Fat, 1 g Protein, 4 g Total Carbohydrate

Nutrition Facts

Serving Size: 1 Serving
Calories
45
Calories from Fat
25
Total Fat
3 g
Saturated Fat
2 g
Cholesterol
10 mg
Sodium
25 mg
Potassium
5 mg
Total Carbohydrate
4 g
Dietary Fiber
0g
Protein
1 g
% Daily Value*:
Vitamin A
2%
2%
Vitamin C
0%
0%
Calcium
0%
0%
Iron
0%
0%
Exchanges:
1 Fat;
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.

More About This Recipe

  • In Germany, these cookies are known as Spritzgebäck. Since the German verb “spritzen” means “to squirt,” their name for this cookie press recipe has been shortened to simply Spritz, one short little word that holds a whole lot of delicious tastes and memories. This spritz cookie recipe is a classic, but there are many creative variations served up in Betty’s best spritz cookies collection. Try snickerdoodle, egg nog or chocolate variations. While it’s possible to extrude the dough with a decorating bag and piping tip, you’ll probably find that a cookie press is an inexpensive kitchen tool that makes the process of cookie formation much easier. There are electric or manual models, most requiring turning a handle, pressing a plunger or touching a button to press out the cookie dough.
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