Cream cheese snowflake spritz

Ingredients [American]

• 100 g shortening
• 110 g butter
• 80 g cream cheese
• 200 g sugar
• 1 egg yolk
• 1 teaaspoon vanilla
• Either:
• 1 teaspoon orange zest
• 1/4 teaspoon orange extract
• 325 to 360 g flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Cream the shortening, butter and cream cheese together on high speed until blended. Add sugar and cream for two minutes.

Beat in the egg yolk, vanilla and orange zest or extract.

Whisk 325 g flour, salt and cinnamon together. Reserve 35 g flour to use if the dough is too soft.

Slowly add to creamed mixture on low speed and mix until fully incorporated.

The dough needs to be soft enough to go through the press easily and to stick to the cookie sheet, but not so soft that it will spread. If the dough seems too soft, gently mix in more flour a tablespoonful at a time, but no more than the reserved 35 g flour.

Preheat the oven to 175 degrees C. Chill dough for 30 minutes.

Fill the cookie press and return the remaining dough to the fridge. Press cookies onto cool, ungreased baking sheets. Decorate as desired.

Bake 12 to 15 minutes.

Cool cookies on sheets for a minute, then remove and cool on wire racks.

If the cookies spread too much in the oven:

• chill the dough if you didn't return it to the refrigerator
• cool the cookie sheets by running them under cold water (dry off before using, of course)
• add reserved flour, if you haven't already; note how much flour you used total
• use only shortening instead of a butter-shortening mixture, especially if the cookies are too hard to press