Heart-Shaped Spritz Cookies

My darling husband got me a fancy pants cookie press for my birthday. He did a lot of research, including seeing what Ms. Martha Stewart had to say, and got me the best cookie press ever. It's Italian. And I love it. The Europeans call it a "biscuit" press, which I also love. It's stainless steel and comes with a ton of plates to make various cookie shapes.

He also got me a new paddle attachment for my KitchenAid mixer (also recommended by Ms. Stewart) which has little rubber scrapers on the sides. The paddle scrapes down mixes as it goes, which saves a lot of time since I don't have to stop and scrape it all down myself. I love it.

I finally had a proper excuse to use my cookie press (not that I need an excuse to make cute cookies) for the Valentine's Day tea party we had a couple weeks ago. I used my heart-shaped plate to make these little cuties:

The plate is a sort of "Y" shape that molds the dough into a heart. It took a little practice trying to get cookies that didn't just look like "Y"s or a big mushy mess.

This may sound crazy but I thought the creamed butter and sugar looked so pretty.

It gets so fluffy and lovely.

Yeah, I think butter and sugar are pretty. I'm weird like that.

I used Spritz cookie dough to make these guys. They were deeelicious. I'm excited about experimenting with different shapes, especially the floral shapes, and decorating them with icing and candies.

Notice the flour everywhere? Yeah. I'm a messy baker. And I'm too stubborn to use the splash guard (which is sitting conveniently right next to the mixer, sigh).

Spritz Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

• 1 cup (two sticks) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup white granulated sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. In the bowl of your mixer, beat butter until creamy
3. Mix in sugar and beat until fluffy
4. Add in the egg and vanilla extract and mix until fully incorporated
5. Add in the salt and gradually add in the flour until fully incorporated
6. Either press out the cookie dough in your cookie press, roll out the dough and cut out shapes, or drop cookie dough 1-2 inches apart.
7. Bake 6-9 minutes

Makes about 4 dozen cookies