Cream Cheese Spritz Cookies

INGREDIENTS
1 cup of butter (softened at room temperature)
3 oz of cream cheese (also softened)
1 cup sugar
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
HOW TO PREPARE
1.) Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
2.) Using mixer blend together butter and cream cheese until creamy
3.) Add sugar and mix well until light and fluffy
4.) Mix in egg yolk, vanilla and almond extract
5.) Slowly add your flour and salt, mix well
6.) If you want to add food coloring, you can take a small part of the dough or all the dough and add food coloring for desired color.
7.) Shape dough into a small log and add it to your cookie press.
8.) Press cookies onto an ungreased cookie sheet (sometimes if you freeze your cookie sheets first the cookies will stick better)
9.) I recommend adding sprinkles before you bake – otherwise you’ll need to frost them to get the sprinkles to stick.
10.) Bake for 10-12 minutes, until they start turning a light brown around the edges.

Preparation Method:This recipe used the creaming method because it called for creaming the butter/cream cheese mixture with sugar before adding other ingredients. This process was similar to the spritz cookie lab we did in class. In class I learned that the butter should change color while being creamed with the sugar, this helped me determine when it was done because the recipe didn't specify how long to cream the butter and sugar. This preparation method affected the final product because there was no leavening agent in the recipe so air had to be added to the butter by creaming it with the sugar so that the cookies wouldn't turn out flat. The creaming method also requires the butter to be in a somewhat solid form, if the butter was completely melted the cookies would spread a lot more but since the butter was in solid form the cookies hardly spread.

Critique: The cookies appeared puffy and soft, most of them had subtle browning on the edges but some had more browning than others. While baking the cookies smelled like sugary vanilla which is what most cookies tend to smell like. The cookies were fairly soft but slightly crunchy around the edges however, I'm not sure if the cookies will become more crunchy by tomorrow. Finally, the cookies were very sweet tasting and I could definitely taste the almond extract which is probably because it was brand new so it was still very strong.

Experience: I would make these cookies again because they were easy and didn't take very long to make or bake. What I learned from this experience is to use less of an extract if it is new because its flavor could overpower the rest of the flavors in the final product.

Katie S. Hour 4