These cream cheese spritz cookies have a soft crumbly texture which makes them addictingly delicious! The added cream cheese in the recipe gives these little guys a rich, smooth, creamy crave-worthy flavor that just can’t be beaten.
Little spritz cookies may have originated in Germany with Biscoff cookies, but this cream cheese spritz cookies recipe is a dream! These cream cheese cookies are a decadent little Christmas cookie recipes that make the season a little brighter.
Oh, and this is one of the most popular Christmas cookie on our site! If you’d like to see the other super popular cookie, check out our Italian Christmas Cookies!
Let’s spritz some cookies!
What I Love About This Recipe
This cream cheese spritz cookies recipe just makes the most decadent little butter cookie with a smooth creamy consistency and they’re ready in under half an hour. What’s not to love?
Plus, it’s so much fun to add those tiny bits of colored sugar crystals and sprinkles to dress them up ever so slightly. They look like sooo much work but they’re really not! Here are some other great reasons to love them.
- Ready in under half an hour
- Decorating optional
- Makes great gifts
Cream Cheese Spritz Cookies Recipe Notes
While this cream cheese spritz cookies recipe is simple and straightforward, there are a few tricks to help ensure beautiful little cookies that look as good as they taste!
- Mixing: I know it sounds a little weird but you must mix the dry ingredients first. It really does matter because it helps evenly distribute the leavening agents and spices for a consistent texture and flavor profile across all your cookies. It also means you can do less mixing to combine wet and dry ingredients.
- Cream Cheese: You’ll want to be sure that your cream cheese is softened when you make these cookies. They are similar to cream cheese shortbread cookies in a lot of ways.
- Creaming: Instead of creaming the butter and sugar, you’re creaming the shortening, cream cheese, and sugar. It’s the same premise. The little sugar crystals make small cuts in the shortening/cream cheese to create air pockets that will help them rise and behave appropriately in the oven.
- Egg: I also grab a large egg for this recipe because I only use the yolk. Separating the yolk is as simple as cracking the egg into your clean hand over a bowl. Let the egg white run through your fingers and gently catch the yolk with your palm.
- Cookie Press: Also, you’ll be using a cookie press which isn’t nearly as hard as it sounds. Here’s a little tip…If dough does not extrude from the press, spray dough lightly with nonstick cookie spray.
- Baking Sheet: Do not use a nonstick or greased cookie sheet or cookies will not stick to the sheet. This time you want your cookies to stick to the pan and stay where you put them.
- There’s such a high-fat content in the recipe your cookies should remove easily when they’re done.
- Remove cookies from the cookie sheet after 2 minutes or cookies will continue to cook and not remove easily.
- Spacing: One last thing. Try to space your cookies about 2 inches apart on the cookie sheet. Overcrowding can prevent proper air circulation and cause your cookies to burn. You don’t want that.
- Storing Tips: Storing these little babies is as easy as putting them in an airtight container. Since this cream cheese spritz cookies recipe does make some pretty decadent little cookies, you may want to layer some wax paper in there to keep them from sticking but that’s totally up to you.
- These little cookies absorb the air around them, so you may want to put a piece of white bread in the container to keep them fresh. I don’t recommend storing them in a bag.
Storing + Freezing
- How Long Can You Keep This In The Fridge? Your cream cheese spritz cookies recipe will stay good in the fridge for up to 5 days.
- Can You Freeze This? Absolutely!! You can freeze the baked and completely cooled cookies for 6-8 months. If the frozen cookies seem a little soft after they thaw you can toss them in a 275-degree oven for 3 or 4 minutes.
Recipe Variations
- Add chocolate. If you’re a chocolate fanatic switch cream cheese with cocoa for a crumbly chocolate spritz cookies recipe.
- Substitute some ingredients. Substitute lemon zest for the orange zest and you can also substitute almond extract for the vanilla extract
- Add more decor. Fine chop nuts and sprinkle them on top. Dust cookies with cinnamon sugar or dredge cookies in powdered sugar.
More Christmas Cookies Recipes
- Danish Wedding Cookies
- Yugoslavian Christmas Cookies
- Almond Crescent Cookies
- Christmas Crack
- Cranberry Orange Shortbread Cookies
- Italian Wedding Cookies
- Crockpot Candy
- Vanillekipferl
- Soft Gingerbread Cookies
- Chocolate Christmas Cookies
Cream Cheese Spritz Cookies
Ingredients
- 1 cup shortening
- 3 ounces cream cheese, softened
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 large egg yolk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon finely grated orange zest
Decorations (optional)
- colored sugar, sprinkles, red hots, jimmies
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- In a mixing bowl, using an electric mixer set on medium, cream together the shortening, cream cheese, and sugar. Mix in the egg yolk and vanilla.
- In a small mixing bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and cinnamon. Slowly add flour mixture, mixing until combined. Stir in orange zest.
- Spoon the dough into a cookie press fitted with the disk of your choice. Press the dough onto ungreased cookie sheets, 2 inches apart. Decorate with colored sugar, sprinkles, red hots, jimmies if desired.
- Bake in the preheated oven, until set, about 6-8 minutes. Cool on cookie sheet for 2 minutes then remove to wire racks and cool completely. Repeat with remaining dough
Fans Also Made:
How long can they store for in a plastic container when baked?
Hi, April! For a week.
Hi question I’m making these but it’s so dry that it’s jamming the Wilton press and it never became doughy til I’m using my hands. It’s stayed dry. I followed exact measurements and all. Ughhhh. HELP!!!
Hi Patricia. I can’t imagine why you’re having that result. It’s never happened when I’ve made them. 🙁
My Wilton press did the exact same thing, too dry so it jammed it up and nothing would come out. It wasn’t a big deal for me since it was the perfect texture for cookie cutters!
So sorry that happened to you Jamie, but I’m happy it turned out well!
Being a gluten free house hold, can I substitute gluten free flour?
Hey Carol. I haven’t tried it so I can’t advise. Sorry!!
I used gluten free bakery flour. They were dry and crumbly.
Will this batter work with the “new” Cookie Shooter or is it too thick?
Christine, I haven’t tried it with a new cookie shooter. I wish I could be of some help! So sorry. I’d love to hear back from you if you give it a try and how the dough worked. Best of luck <3
Since almond extract is much stronger than vanilla, would you recommend reducing the amount of extract when using almond? Vanilla is more subtle than almond; can you dismiss the orange zest when using almond extract?
Hi Kathleen. Yes if you’d like the almond flavor to be more of a background flavor rather than a more prominent one. Honestly, I often make them with the full 1 teaspoon and they’re always a hit.
Can you use butter instead of shortening?
Hi Marylyn! Yes, you can use butter for this recipe. ?
Can this recipe be used for cookies not using a cookie press? For dropped or rolled cookies?
Hi Jan! Yes, you can definitely make these without a cookie press, but they’ll require a bit more gentle handling because they’re looser compared to standard cookie dough. Hope this helps!
This is so easy and the ingredients are so simple!! My friends and I will definitely bake this!
Thank you and enjoy baking with your friends! 🙂