When I was a young kid one of my favorite days was the Saturday before Christmas because it was Spritz day. My mom and I would spend all day in the kitchen making cookies in fun shapes and watching Christmas movies. The best part about this day was I got to help. So there wasn’t a lot I could do, but I could operate the cookie press. Spritz cookies are great if you have kids that want to help but are still too young to do much. Even with a manual cookie press you can easily show a young child how to distribute the dough. One click per cookie. If you don’t have a cookie press I recommend either this manual option
or this power option.

This recipe is actually a hybrid of the spritz recipe I loved as a kid and a recipe ComputerNerd’s family enjoys. They are super-orangey and have just a hint of vanilla. You can choose to serve them plain but I love to make sandwiches with orange curd.

Spritz Dough

• 1/2 cup butter (at room temperature)
• 1/2 cup cream cheese (at room temperature)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 Tablespoon orange juice
• 1 teaspoon orange zest
• 1/2 teaspoon orange extract
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 2 1/2 cups flour, sifted
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, cream butter, cream cheese and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the zest, juice, orange, vanilla extracts, and the egg. Mix until well incorporated and smooth. In a separate bowl mix the dry ingredients together. Add the dry ingredients to the wet in 3 additions. Load your cookie press according to the manufacturer’s instructions. Distribute the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet (yeah I know but they don’t stick well to parchment). Bake for 5-6 minutes rotating once. Remove your cookies from oven and allow them to cool on the baking sheet (these cookies break all the rules). Remove the cookies from the baking sheet once cooled and fill sandwiches of 2 cookies with orange curd.

Orange curd

• 4 small to medium sized navel oranges
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 4 egg yolks
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 6 Tablespoons unsalted butter

You will need a double boiler (find one here) and a candy thermometer (find one here). Zest (you can just use a vegetable peeler, because it will be processed later, but avoid getting too much of the white pith) and juice your oranges. Pulse the zest and sugar until a mealy mix is formed. In the lower pan of your double boiler, boil a couple inches of water. Reduce the heat to a simmer. While waiting for the water to boil, in the cold top pan, beat the eggs and yolks until well incorporated. Add the sugar zest mix, juice, and vanilla extract. Mix until the sugar is dissolved and sprinkle the butter on top of the mixture.

Place the top pan of the double boiler on top of the lower pan. Clamp a candy thermometer to the side of the top pan. Stir the mixture continuously. When the mixture reaches about 180 degrees it will begin to thicken. Keep stirring until it gets to the consistency of warm sour cream. DO NOT allow it to get to 210 degrees, the eggs will curdle! It will coat your spoon, but will not ripple off when the curd is finished cooking. Remove the top pan from the double boiler. Stir with the heat off until the curd is cool to the touch. Strain it through a fine mesh strainer. Refrigerate until you are ready to use it.