Tis' the Season for Cookies: Or, the Importance of Butter

I'm pretty sure "The Importance of Butter" could just be the subtitle of every post, but in this case I'm referring to that little modicum none of us pay much attention to in ingredient lists: 3 sticks of butter, softened. While I am all for throwing things together in the kitchen, I definitely hold strong opinions about the proper temperature of butter in a recipe, or beside my bread at a nice restaurant for that matter. I know the kitchen is 80 degrees, why in the world would you give me a hockey puck of butter to spread on my it-had-better-be-warm roll? I feel the need to justify myself here: I won't actually send the bread and/or butter back, not at this point in my life anyway, but a restaurant that serves both warm bread and soft butter without question before my order comes is well on its way to earning repeat-visit status on my list before my entree arrives. A woman's got to have her principles. But let's focus on the butter, shall we?

Real life: Who actually bakes with room temperature butter? I don't know anyone with the forethought or patience to take butter out of the fridge an hour or two before baking, myself included. The problem being no one who gives two hoots about their stand mixer would make it try to turn a stick of rock-hard butter into a fluffy mass of goodness either, leaving the obvious solution of throwing that stick of butter into the microwave for a few seconds.  The problem with this is that you often end up with the concave-stick of butter thing going on when the middle of the butter begins to melt, thus changing the butter from a solid to a liquid (I know, duh) and inhibiting its ability to trap air, ultimately drastically changing the texture of your finished cake or cookie.

This particular baking mishap can be avoided by utilizing the Ben Affleck of microwave buttons (forgotten, but not gone): the power button. In my house we always reheated out leftovers on 80, our hot chocolate or coffee on 70, and only used 100% power when we actually wanted to cook something like frozen vegetables.  I'm just hazarding a guess that this is probably because my father read the manual of the first microwave they bought back in the 80s cover-to-cover and has been following their suggestions for the last 25 years. We're a family of instruction-followers, I'll admit it.

I usually microwave my butter at 20 or 30% power for a full 55 seconds, and after all that microwaving it still is only slightly softened, just at room temperature:

Yup, just throw the sticks in their still in their wrappers, straight from the fridge.

This technique also works great for cakes, which in my experience rise much better when all of the ingredients (butter, milk, eggs, etc.) are at room temperature, an experiment which can be addressed in other posts.

Now, on to the cookies! Does anyone else's family make Spritz cookies at Christmas? I am the proud inheritor of my family's 20+ year old cookie press and it still works like a champ.  I've never used the gun-style cookie presses they sell at craft stores now but I would be hard pressed to trade anything for my all-metal version. 

Because my mother tends to take much better care of her possessions than I do (note the original packaging) I imagine this cookie press will last another twenty years or so, until the next culinarily-inclined offspring inherits it.

Is there anything better than Christmas cookies and not-just-coffee-in-that-mug? I don't care if it's 65 outside, I'm going to pretend like it's Connecticut and I'm justified in warming myself up a little this afternoon. 







'Tis the Season: Spritz Cookies
p. 684 of The Gourmet Cookbook
Just go ahead and get yourself a copy if you don't have one already and thank me after your next dinner party. And Amazon definitely has no idea who I am and doesn't care whether or not you buy a copy by clicking on the link :)  Jus' sayin'.

• 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp. baking powder
• Rounded 1/2 tsp. salt
• 3 sticks unsalted butter, softened 
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp. almond extract
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten

1. Put a rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350.
2. Sift together flour, baking powder, and salt.
3. Beat together butter, sugar, and extracts in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add egg and beat well.  Add flour mixture and mix at low speed until just combined.
4. Quarter dough. Put 1 piece into cookie press and, holding press slightly above an ungreased baking sheet, squeeze out dough to form cookies (follow manufacturer's instructions), spacing them about 3 inches apart. Form more cookies on additional baking sheets with remaining dough in same manner.
5. Bake cookies in batches until edges are golden, 10 to 15 minutes per batch. Transfer to racks to cool.

 These are so easy to dress up for Christmas by coloring the portions of dough red and green and/or sprinkling with colored sugar, sprinkles, etc.