pressed cookies are made by forcing a smooth cookie dough through a cookie press or pastry bag fitted with a disk or nozzle that forms each cookie into a uniform shape on a baking sheet. The cookies are embossed with the same, usually symmetrical, design on top. Also known as spritz cookies, from the German word spritzen (to squirt), these cookies probably originated in Germany, where they have long been a traditional sweet at Christmas time. Now popular throughout northern Europe, they are also eaten in other parts of the world where European immigrants have settled.
