Spritz Cookies

Last year I bought a spritz cookie press in a temporary moment of insanity. I am a terrible baker and even though I try hard, there are only a tiny handful of successful recipes that I can tuck under my hat. I don't know what the problem is. It might be my oven, or typos in all the recipes I try. Well, it could be. Anyway, I tried it once last year and it was an Epic Fail. (How cool am I to use cool words like, Epic Fail? Hee hee...) Sticky dough, hard, dry, burnt...you get the picture. So, when our son Landon found the press and begged me to make cookies, I gotta tell ya, I wasn't overly excited. But, I was willing to give it another shot, and hopped on PINTEREST (I LOVE PINTEREST!) to guide me in a better direction than last year. There I found a cream cheese recipe someone had pinned from Andrea Myers blog, that claimed the cream cheese kept the cookies soft. Here is the website:

http://andreasrecipes.com/cream-cheese-spritz-cookies/

(I didn't use the orange zest or cinnamon. That might be part of my problem. Not being able to follow an entire recipe!)

Every once in a while I get an easy Daycare day. (I am a full time Child Care provider with 11 dc kids and one of my own!) Today was one of those days. With only three kids here and one of them in preschool all morning, I thought it was the perfect time to tackle those cookies. The thing about spritz cookies is you have to pump out about 3,444 crooked, no good cookies, before the press starts cranking out good, keeper cookies. So, for every tube you fill, you get 2 good cookies. Well, it seems that way anyway. (If anyone knows the secret for getting all good, keeper cookies, please tell me!) We ended up with a couple sheets of good ones, and then I saved a little dough for my little preschooler boy. He came back at dinnertime, and was all set to make cookies! (He had made drop sugar cookies a few days ago with his mom, and was ready to go again!) I handed him the press and I guess the dough must have gotten a little too warm as it was not cooperating at all! I took it back and tried myself without success. He just shook his head, sighed and said, "Just take it out of there and I'll show you how to make cookies!" And he did. Check them out! (That little comment made me chuckle all day. One of the many perks of my job!)

Now, THIS is how you make spritz cookies!