What The Heck Are Spritz Cookies?

We went to the Adirondacks with some friends this past summer and somehow the topic of favorite cookies came up. I mentioned Spritz cookies as one of my favorites, which our friends had never heard of. 

This seemed insane to me and my husband who both had memories as a kid of the REEEEEE sound of a cookie press spitting out Spritz cookies for Christmas.

So we promised to make our friends some of these cookies and to take a video of the circa 1970s kitchen gadget in action.

And here are the results. 

You may not think of this as a harrowing adventure, but you try deep cleaning old cookie dough out of a 50 year old machine and then plug it into a wall to see what happens. 

Fortunately no one was electrocuted in the making of these cookies.