Spritz are usually one of the first cookies I bake at Christmas, only because they were one of the cookies my grandmother always baked.
It certainly wasn't because they were easy to make. Although the batter is a straightforward butter, forming the cookies sometimes had me scraping up and flinging malformed cookies back into the bowl of dough. I used my grandmother's screw-top press. Legions of American bakers had made wonderful cookies for Christmas and bridge games (one set of discs is the card suits) with the identical press what was wrong with me?
Eventually, I thought I'd see if it were me, or the tools.
The Wilton press really does make it that much easier to form spritz cookies. I made a double batch of spice spritz for Valentines Day and let the kids (4 and 16) pick the shapes to make. The 16-year-old picked hearts; the 4-year-old picked Christmas trees, pumpkins, and circles. All three of us had no problem using the trigger-style press; the pre-schooler had to use both hands, but was able to press out cookies.
Each trigger delivered sufficient dough to stick to the (ungreased, unlined) pan and still separate from the press and form the shape without turning into a blob.
All the discs and most of the press are made of plastic. I'd prefer metal so that I won't have to buy a new one in 20 years. The new press adds some shapes the old press didn't have (pumpkins), keeps some (trees), but is missing some of my favorites (camel, dog, card suits). I'll probably keep my grandmother's to make those shapes.
And this is the low end model. Cook's Illustrated reviewed cookie presses, and recommended the Wilton ultra manual model, but unless the high-end model also does dishes, I wouldn't spring for it. [I was wrong about this, see below.]
Will I keep using it? Yes. It was fast, fun, and the kids had a blast.
Some recipes:
One year on, how is the press holding up?
Not well at all. The plastic body that had concerned me proved not to be up to the task of pressing cookie dough when the over-eager four-year-old packs the flour into the measuring cup. The dough was far, far too firm, almost a rolled cookie dough. The press could force the dough out, but I was over eager, and eventually the plastic holding the screws cracked. It made it through one more use (with very soft dough), but is now unusable. One more half-broken thing sitting around my house!
This means I did upgrade to the ultra model, which contained extra "mini" dies, but disappointingly enough, no extra larger designs. The tube is a more rigid plastic, hopefully better able to withstand my son's measuring technique (which I will be watching more closely).
Technically, it was my step-father's first wife's press with some of my grandmothers discs, but my grandmother had the identical press, which went to a cousin.
