Wreath Spritz Cookies

cookies:
1 cup butter (or other shortening)
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg or 3 egg yolks
2 1/4 cups sifted all purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

wreath decor ingredients:
green cake decor sprinkles
red hots (or cinamon imperial heart candy works even better)
green food coloring (optional)

equipment:
mirro cooky press with small star shaped blade

Directions:
1. Cream shortening, adding sugar gradually.
2. Add egg unbeaten--beat well.
3. Add sifted dry ingredients, and extract.
4. Optionally, divide dough in half, and mix a few drops of green food coloring into half of the dough.
5. Refrigerate dough until cool (about one hour)
6. Fill cookie press with dough and attach small six pointed star shaped blade to press. If you used food coloring on half the dough, fill the press such that the star will press out a half green and half white stripe of dough.
7. Press dough at an angle into a circle/wreath shape.
8. Adorn with green sprinkles and three red hots per cookie.
9. bake.

Yield: about 5 dozen

Notes on this recipe:

If you can find them, I suggest using cinnamon imperial hearts candy insted of red hots. Usually that candy is only easy to find around valentines day, however it has a long shelf life. Those candies are slightly larger and make for better tasting cookies

I suggest rather than an "ungreased aluminum cookie sheet" (do you think that maybe perhaps Mirro was trying to promote one of their other products?) baking the cookies on a piece of tinfoil on a cookie sheet. The tin foil makes the cookies easier to remove without breaking as you can peel off the tinfoil from the back side if needed. Plus, its much easier to clean up, especially if any ret hot oozes off your cookies onto the cookie sheet.

The base for this recipe came with Mirro Cooky press from 1950s era. The original recipe called for almond extract instead of vanilla extract. It also suggested cooking for 10-12 minutes at 400-425 degrees, but I don't suggest doing that unless you like burnt cookie or happen to have an antique oven that cooks cooler than it says. The recipe has been adjusted to show my traditional family recipe for wreath cookies.

If you don't have a cookie press, you can probably buy one cheap off ebay. There seem to be lots of them there.