Chocolate Spritz Christmas Tree Cookies

These Chocolate Spritz Christmas Tree Cookies are a fun and festive treat for the holidays. All you need is some chocolate cookie dough, some sprinkles, and a cookie press!

I made these Spritz cookies to share at a Los Angeles food blogger cookie exchange. I love that the cookies are small, and the recipe makes a lot of cookies, which is great during holiday baking season. You never run short of cookies during cookie season!

While spritz cookies are a Christmas tradition, you can also dress them up for other occasions, such as these for Mardi Gras. In fact, along with a tree shape and a candy cane shape, the cookie press I used (affiliate link) has a disk to press out hearts, butterflies, flowers, bats, and even dinosaurs.

You don't have to wait until Christmas to use your cookie press!

What are spritz cookies?

Spritz cookies are made from a soft and pliable dough. They don't have any leavening in them (baking soda or baking powder), so they hold their shape well while baking. In fact, you can place them just one inch apart on your baking sheet.

Spritz cookies get their name from the German word "spritzen," which apparently means squirt, in reference to "squirting" the dough through a cookie press to make lots of cute shapes. 
You can see in the photo below what the Christmas tree disk looks like.

How to make spritz cookies:

The basic dough recipe for 4 dozen spritz cookies typically consists of 2 sticks of butter, 3/4 to 1 cup of sugar, an egg, vanilla and almond extracts, salt, and 2 1/4 to 2 1/2 cups of flour. The dough is soft enough to push through a cookie press, but not so soft that it is overly sticky. 

You can also add food coloring to the dough depending on the look you are trying to achieve. For this dough, I also added 1/4 cup of cocoa powder. 

First, you cream the butter and sugar until it is light and fluffy, and then beat in an egg, extracts, salt, and any spices. 

After that, you stir in the flour to incorporate. Do not chill the dough or you will not be able to "squirt" it through your cookie press. 

Press the dough out onto parchment lined baking sheets. You can either decorate the cookies with sprinkles before baking or ice the cookies after baking and add the sprinkles on top of the icing. 

Finally, bake the spritz cookies for about 10 minutes. 

For these chocolate spritz cookies, I used some Christmas colored nonpareils for sprinkling before baking, and I pressed a pearl candy sprinkle onto the top of each tree.

Tips for making spritz cookies:

1. Use a dough that is meant for spritz cookies. It should be soft and slightly but not too sticky. Do not use a dough that has leavening in it. 
2. Before you start pressing out the dough, make sure that the dough is fully packed into the cookie press without any air spaces.
3. You may need a couple of test "squirts" before the cookies begin to come out consistently. 
4. Place the cookie press directly onto the parchment lined cookie sheet and press the dough out quickly with a single swift press of the handle of your cookie press. Then, quickly lift the cookie press in an upward motion. Once you see that you are getting a consistent shape, move rapidly and lift the press off quickly. 
5. The dough needs to stick to the pan or parchment paper for you to cleanly lift the cookie press. Do not grease the pan or use a nonstick pan. Also, make sure your pan is cool. 
6. If the surface of your cookies looks a little messy after pressing, you can smooth it a little with your fingers or a small offset spatula. 

Here are my cookies with some of the rest of the cookie exchange cookies from my Food Bloggers Los Angeles friends. Doesn't this look like a great cookie plate for Santa?

Spritz Cookie Recipe Variations:

Because I haven't tested this recipe with other ingredients, I recommend making these once as written. After that, if you want to get creative, here are some ideas for variations that might work well:

• Add some cinnamon and cayenne pepper for a Mexican hot chocolate twist to these cookies. 
• Brush these cookies with a glaze after they have baked and cooled, and then decorate with different sizes of sprinkles for an elegant Christmas tree. 
• Decorate with some royal icing in the crevices and sprinkle with sparkling sugar after baking. 

If you are looking for inspiration to get in the kitchen and start baking, check out what all of the hosting bloggers have made:

• Pecan Snowball Cookies from Food Lust People Love
• Biscochos from Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Espresso Sable Sandwiches with Blonde Chocolate Filling from The Spiced Life
• Gevulde Speculaas - Dutch Spiced Cookies from Spiceroots

Chocolate Spritz Christmas Tree Cookies

If you try these cookies, please let me know what you think! I'm confident you will find making spritz cookies a totally fun experience!

Chocolate Spritz Christmas Tree Cookie Recipe

Yield: 48 cookies

Author: Karen Kerr

These Chocolate Spritz Christmas Tree Cookies are a fun and festive treat for the holidays. All you need are some chocolate cookie dough, some sprinkles, and a cookie press!

ingredients:

• 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons of milk
• 2 1/2 teaspoons of vanilla
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 1/2 cups (12.5 ounces by weight) all purpose flour, sifted
• Sprinkles such as nonpareils and pearls. 

instructions:

How to cook Chocolate Spritz Christmas Tree Cookie Recipe

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. 
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the butter and sugar on medium speed until light and fluffy. 
3. Beat in the egg, milk, vanilla, and salt. 
4. Using a wooden spoon or spatula, mix in the cocoa and flour until fully incorporated. 
5. Pack the dough into a cookie press fitted with the tree disk. 
6. Press the dough out onto parchment lined baking sheets, one inch apart. 
7. Decorate the trees with sprinkles of your choice. 
8. Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes. 
9. Transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool. 

Calories
78.34

Fat (grams)
4.08

Sat. Fat (grams)
2.44

Carbs (grams)
9.51

Fiber (grams)
0.26

Net carbs
9.25

Sugar (grams)
4.25

Protein (grams)
0.95

Sodium (milligrams)
24.56

Cholesterol (grams)
14.09

https://www.karenskitchenstories.com/2019/12/chocolate-spritz-christmas-tree-cookies.html

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