Benjamin's Spritz Cookies

Benjamin needed to make cookies for his youth activity tomorrow. The boys are planning on taking some cookies around to various people, which meant they needed cookies. They asked Rachel if she would make some cookies for them and she said, "No way!" She felt like the boys were perfectly capable of making their own cookies. And she's not wrong!

When we first learned the boys would need cookies (yesterday) we talked about having Benjamin make cake mix cookies since those are so easy. But then I suggested he make spritz cookies because they really aren't much more difficult than cake mix cookies and I...just always want them during Christmas. 

Not that I'll get any of this batch..but if you teach a boy to make Christmas cookies...chances are he'll make them again...right?

So Benjamin made spritz cookies this evening, mostly by himself. We mixed by hand because Rachel was cleaning in the kitchen and we didn't want to disturb her...and because I grew up mixing practically everything by hand so I rarely think to use the stand mixer for cookie dough.

Here he is stirring;

And using the cookie press:

And here he is taking the cookies off the trays after they were finished baking:

He made one special cookie for himself, loaded with as many sprinkles as he could possibly fit on it:

That is far too many sprinkles for my taste, but Benjamin thought it was delicious!

It was fun to get to bake cookies with Benjamin! I'm sure we'll be doing more cookie baking later this month!

I prefer Betty Crocker's recipe, so I had Benjamin find it online and write it down so we could follow it instead of the recipe that came with our cookie press:

1 cup butter
1/2 cup sugar
2 1/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt (see, Benjamin? I told you it needed salt!)
1 egg
1 teaspoon almond extract (though we used vanilla just in case of allergies)

He forgot to write down salt...but I knew it needed some so we put in a little bit anyway.

Another important part to remember is that this recipe says to bake for only 5 to 8 minutes at 400°F. The recipe that came with our cookie press says to bake for 10 minutes, but I didn't trust that, so I set a timer for 8 minutes and it was probably a minute or two too long (the cookies are in fine shape, just a smidge overdone). 

I didn't have him write down the instructions because I was sure I would remember to cream together the butter and eggs first (since that's pretty standard in cookie recipes) and then add in the rest of the stuff. And I did! I guess I should have had him write down how long to bake these for as well. 

Now we know.