Spritz cookies are a traditional butter cookie made with a cookie press or pastry bag. We began by creaming together shortening, butter, icing sugar, salt, vanilla and lemon zest until it was a uniform colour and consistency, making sure to scrape down the side of the bowl. At the beginning of the demo, Chef spied my Microplane grater which I had the foresight to bring. He seemed to be a fan as he mentioned its surgical-steel blades and the fine shred it produces. The entire class ended up using it! Next, we added eggs, then flour and finally milk. The liquid is added last so that the dough does not develop too much gluten which would produce a tough product.We piped the cookie dough into various shapes: ladyfingers, rosettes, shells (which I can finally make) and flat rosettes with rings. After baking, we sandwiched raspberry jam between some of them and dipped some in coating chocolate. Chef showed how to make a pastry tube out of a piece of parchment which he used to drizzle a thin stream of chocolate over the shells. The ring-shaped cookies were placed on top of the flat rosettes and the centres filled with jam. Our instructor reminded us to produce cookies that looked nice enough so that customers would buy them. I can see how this could be a lucrative business if each one were sold for 65 cents!
After class, I went to Solferino, a new gelato place on Wellington west of Church where I had scoops of guanabana and lulo.
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