Spritz Cookies

I was recently cooking up a cookie storm with a good friend of mine that I have been baking with for almost thirty years, and while we mostly made cookies that we had never made before, we did make an old time favorite of hers for the holidays, namely spritz cookies.  She gave me a new OXO spritz gun, which is her current favorite, and we whipped up these sandwich cookies in just a matter of about an hour and a half.  The dough is easy, you can put them together with any frosting you have on hand (we used a brown butter frosting left over from another cookie) and they are both tasty and pretty to look at.

This recipe comes from Cook's Illustrated.

1 egg yolk
1 Tsp. heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract or 3/4 tsp. almond extract
1 c. butter
2/3 c. sugar
1/4 tsp. salt
2 c. flour

1. Preheat oven to 375
2. In mixer, cream butter, sugar, and salt until fluffy, about 3 minutes.  Then add yolk, cream, and vanilla (or almond extract) and mix briefly.  With mixer on low speed, add flour until combined.
3. Use a cookie press to form cookies.  Bake 10-12 minutes, until they are just turning brown.