Anyone used a cookie press before?

[Becky]

It was my birthday this week, and one of my lovely friends bought me a cookie press! I've never even seen one before, let alone used one. It looks very straight forward, but I was wondering if anyone here has any tips or recipe suggestions?

It looks very similar to this press: http://www.wilton.com/cookies/making-cookies/using-cookie-press.cfm

Can't wait to give it a try!

 

[Cheerio]

Oh, cool! No, I have never used one of those, but my aunt has one and she makes such cute cookies!
Do you think you can let us know how it worked out and maybe take a photo of your cookies? That would be fun!

 

[ACSAPA]

That looks awesome and I like the designs that it makes, but I've never bought a cookie press. It's one of those cool kitchen things that I just never got around to buying.
Happy belated birthday. It sounds like they got you a perfect gift for an avid baker.

 

[Becky]

Going to give it a try today, just need to pick up some butter from the shops first. Very excited!

I found a video on YouTube about using it:

I'll be sure to take some photos!

 

[Cheerio]

That looks like fun! I'm looking forward to seeing the photos!

Can you also use this for other things, like decorating cakes?

 

[cefmac]

I've never heard of that before, but it looks like agreat idea for making quirky yet neat cookies! It reminds me of a piping bag, but obviously more solid and for cookies. Maybe I'll get one!

 

[Becky]

Sorry for the delay in posting about how I got on - we were visiting family, and I took the cookies with me! They were a great success, I took them along to a BBQ and they were demolished in no time

I did basic vanilla Spritz recipe (the one recommended in the accompanying booklet) and decorated them differently. Unfortunately I had problems getting some of the shapes to stick to the baking tray, but the flowers and wreaths worked the best. I think it might be because of the type of baking trays I used, so I might keep an eye out for different ones.

I liked the look of the chocolate covered ones the best, especially with the chocolate sprinkles - they looks like little donuts! The ones that are half covered in chocolate were when I had just a little bit of chocolate left, and they didn't look great at first so I dipped them in the multicolours sprinkles and they looked a lot better.

I think next time I might sandwich them together with jam, yummy!

 

[OhioTom76]

We have a really old one that my aunt gave us because she never used it. I've used it from time to time, but not very often. You need to keep the dough somewhat chilled, and you kind of have to work quickly otherwise the butter in the cookies starts to melt and they begin to lose their shapes. Also types of cookie dough you can use in these is rather limited, you can't really make those dense chewy cookies. The dough recipes for these devices tend to be the light crispy cookies. A lot of our cookies would end up tasting the same, so you need to make different batches with different flavorings to mix things up a little. I like how they topped the cookies with frosting and sprinkles in the shots above.

 

[Margot]

I grew up with one of these - long before the electric ones came out. I am retired now, so you can see how long ago that was. Not sticking to the pan can be helped by using parchment paper. It seems to cling a little better. Betty Crocker cookbooks of yesteryear is where my recipe came from. It was a basic vanilla shortbread type cookie. I'm more of a purist, so my decorations consist more of a single decoration than frosting and sprinkles. I have to admit, though that those looked pretty good, too.