If you’re a beginner holiday baker, these spritz cookies are great for a first-time cookie platter. They’re so easy to make and you can make all sorts of cute shapes with these cookies! Make it stand outWhatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference.

A spritz cookie is a simple butter cookie, which means there aren’t any exotic or surprising ingredients in this cookie recipe. The spritz part is what makes these special. The word is German in origin and it means to spray or squirt-which is what you do with the cookie press (also known as a cookie gun to some bakers). The cookie press looks like a caulking gun, but you fill it with cookie dough instead of sealing compound. You use the press to squeeze out dough into pretty shapes that you can decorate when they’re cool.

When you’re using a cookie press, make sure the spritz cookie dough is room temperature when you load the press. At room temperature, the cookie dough is more pliable when you push it through the press. To keep your cookies from spreading, chill your baking sheet in the freezer before pressing your cookies.

You see a lot of spritz cookies around the holidays because they’re so cute and so easy to decorate.

You can decorate them by coloring the dough with a gel food coloring before loading it into the cookie press.

After they’re pressed and before they’re baked, you can sprinkle spritz cookies with jimmies or colored sugar, plain sanding sugar or dust them with powdered sugar to make it look like snow for a festive touch.

After the spritz cookies are baked and cooled, you can dip them in chocolate as I did with this recipe, or you can use different colored candy melts. Additionally, you can sprinkle the dipped cookies with nuts or nonpareils while the candy or chocolate is still warm.

Anyway you decide to shape or decorate your spritz, they’ll be a festive addition to your holiday cookie platter!