New Kitchen Toy

I've not posted lately because I sort of lost my cooking focus for a while. I don't know what happened, but I'm about to get geared up and going again. I have a new kitchen toy. Last week while watching QVC I saw a demonstration for the KUHN RIKON Clear Cookie Press. It is made in Switzerland and must be manufactured by the same place that manufactures Swiss Army Knives, because that little red cross is right under the name on the box. Anyhow, the demonstration was so convincing that I couldn't resist ordering. I have always wanted to make cheese straws and I could do it with this. The person doing the demo stamped out those spritz cookies so fast it made my head spin. But I know that things are not as easy as they make it look on television, especially when they are trying to sell stuff. I remember that one time I told my friend Glenda Culver about my plan to try something I had seen on HGTV. She cautioned me that "things aren't always as easy as they make it look on television".

The UPS delivery person brought the cookie press this week, and tonight I finally had a chance to use the KUHN RIKON Clear Cookie Press. I used the recipe for Vanilla Cookies (Spritz Cookies) that came in the instruction book with the press. The recipe was easy to follow and most of the ingredients I had here in the kitchen. If you would like the recipe, let me know and I'll send it to you. The only ingredient I had to buy was cardamom. I looked for that at Wal-Mart, but they didn't have it. I found it at Publix and almost fainted when I saw the price. It was almost $9 for a 2 oz. bottle. You can find it with the spices. I'll have to make those cookies a lot to make sure I use that up. These little cookies are really good. The cookie press was very easy to use. The only problem was that it was MESSY to work with the dough. It has to be sticky because the dough doesn't shoot out of the press, but you actually place the tip of the press onto the cookie sheet, and the dough sticks. I found that the faster you work, the better the results.

I consider the Spritz Cookies a success, and can't wait to try the Chocolate Cookies and Cheese Straws. I'll let you know how they turn out.

I learned a lot about the baking equipment I have in the kitchen. The recipe says that it makes 4 dozen cookies, but it actually made 5 dozen. The directions were specific that the pans had to be cold and clean. I didn't want to wait and wash the pans. First I used 2 Pampered Chef stone ware cookies sheets. The cookies were prefect! Then I used a Pampered Chef metal pan, and a Wilton metal pan. Those didn't turn out nearly as well. The got too brown around the edges and the ones on the Pampered Chef pan fell flat. I won't use them again.