Bitch Like A Geologist

‘Tis the season, am I right?

Wait. I mean, sure, it’s time for holidays, but more importantly, it’s time for cookies! Now, since this is Bitch Like A Geologist, this means only one thing – SCIENCE COOKIES.

Now, the fantastic Professor George W. Hart has had a wonderful recipe for trilobite cookies lurking around the web for quite some time now, but it wasn’t quite what I was looking for. This seemed a bit dry and I’m not a fan of jam cookies, so I tried to amend the process a bit.

The recipe calls for a cookie gun, and the shape is obtained based on one key piece – the bar attachment. So I started looking around for a nicer recipe to use with a cookie gun, and came across a really nice one…in the box, of all places.

Classic Spritz Cookies
Note: this is English measurement, but I can translate to metric if requested!

You will need:
for the cookies
1 1/2 cups butter (three sticks)
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
Don’t forget, you need a cookie gun with a bar attachment!

for the coating
1/2 lb. white chocolate merckens (I buy them from a local candy making supply store, but they can be purchased online here. Any color can be used, I just prefer white chocolate!)
an assortment of nonpareils

Procedure:
Preheat oven to 375°. Thoroughly cream butter and sugar. Add egg, milk, vanilla, and almond extract and beat well. Stir together flour and baking powder and gradually add to creamed mixture, mixing to make a smooth dough. Do not chill. Place dough into cookie gun and press cookies onto ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 10-12* minutes or until lightly browned around edges. Remove cookies from sheet and cool on rack.

Makes 7-8 dozen cookies. (…or less if you can’t stop eating the dough!)

A few things: The dough really didn’t want to stick, so I found that if I moved quickly, they stuck better. I used parchment paper on the bottom of my baking sheets, and that seems to have really cut down the mess. This also cut down the cooking time, and ours stayed in the oven for only about 8 minutes. Now to the fun part…the icing!

I took a handful of the merckens and melted them in the microwave, checking and stirring every 30 seconds for about two minutes. This got them nice and melty. I then dipped the head of my trilobuddy into the chocolate, then the bottom, and set them to rest on some wax paper. Using a toothpick, I dipped the end into a little bit of chocolate, adhered a little nonpareil, and stuck that into the cookie chocolate for its eyes. I set them out to cool overnight, and in the morning…

SUCCESS!

I only made 12 with the icing, but based on the response they got, I’ll definitely be making more in the future.

Happy holidays to you and yours!