Browned-butter spritz sandwich cookies

Can you believe that it’s December 17th already? I feel like it was September just a few days ago. Now here we are, creeping up on Christmas. How are you doing? Have you finished all of your shopping? Have you baked all of your cookies? How about the decorations, are they hung by the fireplace with care? To make you feel better let me answer these questions. No, no, no and no. I have not done any of the above. I’ve been living in my little fantasy world over here. You know the one. It’s the one where I have plenty of time before Santa comes rolling into town. What happened this year?

When I was little I would get ready for Christmas in November. It was simple, after my birthday was Christmastime! I spent the day after my birthday preparing my countdown chain. You remember those, right? A ring of paper for each day before Christmas and each day you tear off a ring. In the early days of the chain I would behave and tear off the right number of rings. As the days went on I would pretend to forget about the chain, only to be able to tear off three or four when I “remembered.” Such gratification, tearing off three rings!

Then thanksgiving would arrive, marking the official start of the holiday season. (For everyone else that is, I was already celebrating) The morning after thanksgiving we would head to the local garden store and get two trees. A cute tiny one (for my tiny grams house) and a huge one for us. And I mean HUGE, ten to twelve feet. We would bring it home and set it on the deck. This is where it would sit until the week before Christmas. It would taunt me. It would inevitably be buried in feet and feet of lake effect snow!

According to my calendar it’s one week from Christmas. The tree on my parents deck is getting ready to make its appearance inside the house. A few more days after that I’ll be heading home to visit. The holidays are here and they snuck up on me this year. I decided to make some more cookies to try and convince myself that they really are here.

Browned-butter spritz sandwich cookies

 Adapted from Best Loved Cookies & Bars 2009

1 cup butter

½ cup powdered sugar

1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tsp vanilla
2 ¼ cup flour
½ tsp salt

1 cup chocolate chips
½ tbsp shortening

In a small saucepan, cook butter over medium heat for 8-10 minutes until butter turns golden brown and starts to smell nutty. Transfer to a small bowl and place in fridge to solidify.

Once solid, remove butter from the fridge. Add powdered sugar and beat until smooth. Add egg, egg yolk and vanilla, stir until smooth. Sift together flour and salt then add to butter mixture, mix well.

Use your favorite cookie press and press the dough onto parchment –lined baking sheets. Bake at 375 F for 8 minutes. Cookies will be set, but not browned. Browned means burnt. Allow to cool completely before sandwiching.

In a small saucepan melt chocolate chips and shortening, stirring to mix. Add a small amount of chocolate (1/4 tsp) to the bottom side of one cookie and sandwich with another. Let the cookies sit on a wire rack to set the chocolate. You can also dip the cookies in chocolate and sprinkle with sugar crystals.



This is a cookie press!  I do not reccommend this model by Kitchen Collection, it's not a good press.
Anyone have a good cookie press?