Can pressed cookies be made without creaming butter and sugar?
Is it possible to make a cookie dough for pressing without having to cream butter and sugar (my pet hate)?
Best Answer
It depends on exactly what mean by pressed cookies.
If you mean the kind of butter cookie traditionally made in the US using a cookie press: 
I surveyed the top dozen or so recipes on the web. They all use the creaming method.
If you think about it, this makes sense. The dough that will be used in a cookie press needs to be sufficiently stiff to work in the device, and yet have enough leavening to make a nicely textured cookie. It also needs to set in the oven before it spreads, to retain the pressed shape. As the creaming method leaves the fat as a solid, it meets these criteria well.
Prior to the advent of the cookie press (and still, in professional pastry kitchens), similar cookies were made using a piping bag. Not all of the types of cookies that are piped require the creaming method, although they tend to be very different types of cookie. Some of these include:
- Simple meringues
- French style macarons (which are meringues enhanced with nut flour usually, similar to a dacquoise)
- While not usually called cookies, small petit fours made from choux paste are usually piped, as are their big brothers the eclair or profiterole
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What happens if you dont cream sugar and butter for cookies?
When you beat butter and sugar together in a cookie recipe, you're not just combining ingredients. You're aerating the dough, and creating tiny pockets of air that puff up once the cookies hit the oven. When not done properly, your cookies will end up dense and flat, and no one wants that!What happens if you forget to cream butter and sugar?
There's nothing you can do at this point. Discard it and start over, it's just a bit of butter, sugar and flour at the end of the day.Do I have to cream the butter for cookies?
Creaming evenly disperses the sugar throughout the batter, completely dissolving it into the butter. You also increase volume by mixing thoroughly and incorporating more air into your batter. The result? Lighter textured cookies and cakes.Is it necessary to cream butter and sugar?
Creaming butter and sugar together adds pockets of air that aerate the batter. This air puffs up cakes and other homemade treats as they bake, giving them a lighter and more appealing texture. The air is added by beating room-temperature butter with sugar on high speed.Cookie Science: Why Cream Butter and Sugar?
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Answer 2
as a general FYI - chill the dough, then once you press, put the whole pan in the freezer for about 10 minutes, usually while the an before is cooking... and the cookies will be perfect - creaming the butter and sugar is typically a must.
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