Testing Vintage Gadget: Satisfying Cookie Baking with the Swedish Cookie Press
As I embarked on this baking adventure, I was thrilled to stumble upon an old, yet fascinating gadget that promised to bring joy and satisfaction to my cookie-baking experience. The first device I found was a Swedish cookie press, which had been passed down through generations of bakers in my family. Its charming design and promise of creating perfectly formed cookies sparked my curiosity, and I couldn't wait to give it a try.
The process of using the Swedish cookie press began with filling its chamber with a mixture of butter, sugar, and egg. As I pressed the plunger, the dough was extruded through the press, taking on a beautiful shape that seemed almost magical. The cookies were baked in a short time, resulting in a crispy bottom and a crunchy top, making them perfect for dunking in coffee or tea.
I was impressed by how easy it was to use this device and how quickly I could produce a batch of perfectly formed cookies. With its simple design and intuitive operation, the Swedish cookie press made baking feel like a chore that I actually looked forward to. As I watched the dough come together, I couldn't help but think about all the memories that my family had made while using this exact same press.
After completing my first batch of cookies using the Swedish cookie press, I decided to take it for a test run with another vintage gadget: a Sesame Street-themed Hamilton Beach Cookie Press. This device was battery-operated and featured a wide range of colorful designs, including characters like Cookie Monster and Elmo. The process of making these cookies was similar to that of the Swedish press, but this time I had the added benefit of being able to create fun and colorful shapes.
As I mixed together the ingredients for my Sesame Street cookie dough, I couldn't help but think about how much fun it would be to make these cookies with my children. The recipe was simple, requiring only butter, shortening, sugar, egg, vanilla, and flour, making it accessible to bakers of all ages. With a few quick presses of the button, our Sesame Street characters came to life on a tray of freshly baked cookies.
We used the cookie dough to create our favorite Sesame Street characters, including Cookie Monster, Big Bird, Elmo, hearts, numbers, and letters. The result was an assortment of colorful cookies that were almost too cute to eat. Almost. As I watched my children's faces light up with excitement as they tasted their creations, I knew that this cookie press had brought a new level of joy into our lives.
In contrast to the Swedish cookie press, which produced perfectly formed cookies with minimal effort, the Hamilton Beach Cookie Press was a bit more finicky. However, after experimenting with different techniques and recipes, I discovered that it could produce equally impressive results. The process of making these cookies required patience and practice, but the end result was well worth the effort.
As I finished baking my last batch of Sesame Street cookies, I couldn't help but feel grateful for the experience of using vintage gadgets like the Swedish cookie press and the Hamilton Beach Cookie Press. These devices not only brought me joy and satisfaction but also allowed me to connect with my family and create lasting memories. Whether you're a seasoned baker or just starting out, I highly recommend giving these vintage gadgets a try – you never know what delightful creations you might come up with!
"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enGreetings my beautiful lovelies! Hello, it's Emmy. Welcome back to another vintage gadget test.Today I'm going to be testing this --and this is the Sawa Deluxe 2000.This gadget is perfect for the holidays.It is a cookie press.Basically, it's like a caulking gun and extrudes cookie dough out, using these little dyes that it comes with, into these beautiful little shapes.Aren't they stinking cute?They remind me of those Danish cookies that came in those great big tins -- my grandma used to have those when I was a kid.Loved those! My favorite ones were the ones that had the course sugar on top, like the big crystals of sugar...Yes, I found some of that, so I am gonna try to replicate that on some of these cookies.So what's supposed to be cool about this gadget is: once you have the chamber filled with the dough,you should be able to stamp out cookies very, very quickly. I found this at a thrift store for $2.99.If you're into these vintage gadgets, be sure to check out the playlist where I test out a bunch of otherold-fashioned gadgetry.All right. Let's get back to the Sawa. This was made in Sweden, and from what I can gather, this was made in the 1960s or 1970s.It comes with a meringue star maker; and some of these little piping tip attachmentswhich you would add to this; and a little injector tube so you could fill cream puffs.This is another meringue dye.So what I'm going to be experimenting with today are these.And these are what you can make: isn't that wonderful?!This is my favourite page, and it shows you what the dyes make.So this booklet also includes lots of recipes --I'm going to make the first one -- and this is the Strousburg Cookies.So let me walk you through the steps of making the dough.You're gonna take your butter and place into a bowl and beat it until it's nice and soft.And then you're gonna add your powdered sugar very, very gradually.Lastly, you're going to add your flour and work this until it becomes a pliable dough.And then you're going to press it while the dough is at room temperature.You could make it ahead of time, but make sure you warm it to room temperaturebefore you press, because the dough will be too hard straight out of the refrigeratorto come out of the stamper.Okay, so let's lock and load here.You can place your dye two different ways depending on how thick you want your cookies.I want a nice thick cookie, so I'm gonna place it this way.Place that in there. Then we're going to place our pre-made dough -- place it into the chamber.So we're gonna turn this and pull this all the way....up.Twist that onto here.Now that we have our machine filled,we're ready to press.We're going to press the cookies,but it's important that the pan be chilled; and that makes the dough stick to the pan better.I did spread a tiniest amount of melted butter on top of this before I placed it in the refrigerator...And now we're ready to press.All right, let's give this a go!There it is! There's our cookie! Awesome!And it works great!This is super fast and easy.So, it's not coming out quite as cleanly as I would like -- and maybe that's something to do with the dye.As you can see, you can churn out a lot of cookies. They are a little bit inconsistent. THAT one looks really perfect.These ones look a little bit fat.Before we bake these, I'm gonna put a little few sprinkles on there;a little bit of egg white to this; and I'm gonna add this really big crystal-ly sugar...Love this -- this is stuff of my childhood. I'm gonna put some rainbow sprinkles.I forgot to mention that the reason why my tray is so small is because I'm going to be baking these in mytoaster oven. A little bit of an experiment. I had a thermometer inside my toaster oven, and I was able to calibrate it.And it was actually pretty accurate. My larger oven is currently out of commission, so I'm gonna be baking cookies in a toaster oven.It's totally possible.We're gonna pop these into a 400-degree oven for six to eight minutes,or until they just get a little bit of goldness around the edges. We don't want them to have any color on top.Bye!I changed my dye -- I am gonna make some little stars next.Cute!Though it seems like the star one is a little bit easier to extrude than the wreath one. It's certainly very easy to use.Okay, great! So, since it's the holidays and it's cookie baking season,I thought I'd also share with you this gadget!And this is another cookie press that I found... It's made by Hamilton Beach, and, of course,It's Sesame Street themed. I bought this at my thrift store for $3.99.And this one is battery-operated.Same idea.You're gonna have a chamber and you're gonna fill it with cookie dough and then you extrude it out.This time you're going to squeeze a button.This one you can mix Cookie Monster; Big Bird; Elmo;some hearts;numbers;letters;Christmas trees.Very cute kit... And my boys were interested in making, of course, the Sesame Street characters.So we used the Cookie Monster recipe.In a large bowl, we're gonna place our butter and our shortening;we're gonna cream this together until it's light and fluffy.Good work, buddy! How does it feel?Yeah?And then we're gonna gradually add our sugar.And continue to beat this for about five minutes until, again, everything is nice and light and fluffy.Next we're gonna add our egg, and our vanilla.It does kind of look like yoghurt.Oh, like when you put maple syrup in your yogurt, you mean?Yeah.Yeah.In a separate bowl, we're gonna combine our flour, our baking powder, and salt.Mix this together; and then we're gonna add this flour mixture to our butter mixture,in three Increments.So then we took the dough and divided it into three different bowls; and we dyed them red, blue and yellow.Now is the fun part: we're going to extrude while the dough is at room temperature.We're gonna put the dye that we want at the end of the chamber, and then we're going to fill the tube with whatever coloris appropriate for our die.Then we place the plunger back in; connect it to the top; then, on a cooled cookie tray,we're gonna press our dough out.Through lots of trial-and-error, and lots of giggles, we found about two or three second hold on the button extruded the perfect kind of muppet.(Laughter.)All right! Then we're gonna bake this in the oven for about seven to eight minutes, or untilthe cookie has set. We don't want any color.We don't want these to brown. And then pull 'em out and allow them to cool before consumingAll right, so let's go ahead and taste our cookies; these just came out of the oven. Here we go! Itadakimasu!Mmm!Full of intense and buttery flavor; have a light crispness on the bottom;and then, of course, you've got the crunchiness on the top from the sugar;and this is very much a shortbread:it's full of buttery flavor; and kind of light on the sweetness; and just begs for something to dunk in.Lovely. This recipe is also really lovely because the cookies do not spread much -- they retain a lot of their shape.So let's eat our Sesame Street version. Here we go!Mm!And those are very good as well; they totally transport me back to my days of childhood.These are much sweeter;and they taste just like a classic sugar cookie: vanilla-ed; sweet; got a slight little chew; a crispness to the bottom; but...lovely!Tons of food coloring in them, though.This recipe did spread a lot more than the Swedish recipe.In terms of ease of use, and success,I was really surprised by this -- this worked her really, really well, and the kids loved it!They didn't have to expend much energy -- they just SQUOSE and out came Cookie Monster. It was really, really fun.We also used these little candy eyeballs to give them a little bit more life --they look a little bit creepy, but...super fun to put funny eyeballs on our cookies.All in all, I really enjoyed using the cookie presses --they were pretty easy to use, and you could really crank out a lot of cookies once you had your dough made.So yeah, if you're making cookies, this might be the way to go. All right.Thank you guys so much for joining me!I hope you guys enjoyed that one;I hope you guys learned something; share this video with your friends; and follow me on social media;And I shall see you in my next video. Toodaloo! Take care! Byeee!Toodaloo! Take care! Byeee! (Burps.)\n"
