Spritz Cookies with Browned Butter and Chinese Five Spice
Adapted from The Spiced Life.
Ingredients
- 1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, browned
- scant 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar, sifted
- 2 T apple brandy
- 2 large egg yolks
- 1 T Chinese 5 Spice*
- ¼ t salt
- 2⅓ cups (294 g) AP flour
- 1 T milk, not skim, if needed (I did need)
- pink, red, orange and gold sanding sugar if desired for autumn cookies
Instructions
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Preheat oven to 350 F. Do NOT grease cookie sheets for this recipe, but parchment paper or silicone mats are fine. Have some cookie sheets ready.
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Brown the butter and let cool for 5 minutes.
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Mix the sugar into the butter--by hand is fine. Mix until incorporated. (If you use an electric mixer, do not beat a lot of air into the mixture.)
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Once the sugar has dissolved, mix in the apple brandy.
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Beat in the egg yolks and salt until incorporated.
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Whisk the Chinese 5 Spice into the flour.
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Gradually stir in the flour by hand: you are aiming for a dough that is not super soft, but also not too stiff to push through the cookie press. If the dough seems too stiff or crumbly, add more milk, ½ tablespoon at a time. Mine took an extra 1 tablespoon total.
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Fill the tube of your cookie press and press the cookies out onto the un-greased cookie sheets, about 1½ inches apart. Sprinkle with sparkling sugar if using.
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Bake for 12-16 minutes, until lightly browning at the edges. Rotate sheets if necessary for even browning.
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Let cool on sheets for 5 minutes before moving to a cooling rack.
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Cool completely before storing.
Recipe Notes
*I used Penzey's Chinese Five Spice, which is a combination of Chinese cinnamon (cassia), star anise, anise seed, ginger and cloves. You could make your own blend from those 5 spices or you could experiment with other blends. Do note that mine did not include Sichuan peppercorns, so these cookies as I made them are not at all hot.