spritz lessons learned

so cute and tasty!  and ..such a learning curve

lesson 1: clear off the damn counter before you start baking.  there is no need for mail, peanut butter jars, beer caps, wiring lab materials, christmas decor, and books to be sharing your prep space. 

lesson 2: "room temperature" butter assumes you dont keep your house at 60 degrees on the regular.  easiest way to remedy is to mix the batter as usual [kitchenaid mixer is pretty necessary at this temp] and then stick the whole mixing bowl in the pre-heated oven until the butter starts shimmering out of the dough a bit.  obvi the bowl will be hot as balls but spritz dough DOES have to be pliable for the cookie spritzer to actually work

lesson 3: there are 40 internet variations of spritz recipes.  go with tried and true.  and easy.  then switch it up from there.  and if you dont have enough powdered sugar for snickerdoodle spritz... just under the required amount of regular sugar does the trick surprisingly well.

lesson 4: direct substitution with expensive gluten free flour isnt *quite* right still.  possibly another egg white or yolk would have fixed my fragile spritz situation, but gluten free friends were placated

lesson 5: an important step that seems to be left out of the recipes i read.. let the little dudes cool for a minute or two on cookie sheets.  they should pop off without any sticking [SO MUCH BUTTER] and they wont deform all sad and funky when jostled with a spatula