Day 52: St. Nicholas' Day (December 6) normally initiates the cookie-baking season in my kitchen, but this year I got the jump on St. Nick with a batch of premature spritz. Spritz are one of my two favourite Christmas cookies, the other known variously as Russian tea cakes, sandies or snowballs. The holidays are not fully in sway until both varieties are baked, bagged and frozen. Spritz are a bit of a pain to make, but not nearly as much so these last couple of years as previously. I invested in a trigger-operated cookie gun which spits out uniform bits of molded dough with each individual click. The secret to success lies in having the cookie sheets cold when the dough is extruded onto them; the chilled surface makes them adhere. I put my heavyweight pans in the freezer the night before, and shooting cookies was an absolute breeze the following morning. The crunch of abundant crystal sugar provides texture to the rich, buttery, almond-flavoured cookies. I was delighted to find it in colours other than red and green this year. I mean, whoever heard of a green snowflake outside of politics?
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