Hold the cookie presses and put away the cook books for the time being.

A cookie press is a device for making pressed cookies such as spritzgebäck.

Transfer the dough to a cookie press or a pastry bag fitted with a large star-shape tube.

The cookie press comes with stern warnings to use only the included recipes, which have less butter and sugar to maintain their rigid shapes.

Place dough in a cookie press with a 1-inch bar cookie disc with 3 stripes.

Last thing, and this is really coming into vogue now, is the use of a cookie press (my mom used to use hers constantly).

Pinkie-size biscuits is more like it, with a ridged surface that comes from extruding the dough through a cookie press.

Roll dough, press through cookie press.

An automated or hand-operated cookie press, also called a cookie gun, is used to make large batches of cookies quickly.

Skip the cookie press.

The Wilton cookie press.

Pressed cookies are made from a soft dough that is extruded from a cookie press into various decorative shapes before baking.

A Kuhn Rikon cookie press spat out cookies with the satisfying precision of a staple gun.

They are made using a cookie press and dough made with butter, flour, salt, cheddar cheese and cayenne pepper.

The dough can be shaped in a variety of ways: dropped from a teaspoon, molded into balls or run through the thin setting of a cookie press.

Note: Cookie presses are available at Bridge Kitchenware in Manhattan, Martha by Mail and most Kmarts.

Using a rubber spatula, transfer one quarter of dough into a large pastry bag fitted with a small star tip or into the canister of a cookie press.

Typically the cookie press has interchangeable perforated plates with holes in different shapes, such as a star shape or a narrow slit to extrude the dough in ribbons.

The story was adapted as a children's book, written by Sarah L. Thomson, illustrated by David Wiesner, and published in 2004 by Milk and Cookies Press.

Once the "blob" of cookie dough is forced through the cookie press (a tube, funnel, and mold pressed against a baking pan) it becomes a Christmas tree, star, or Santa Claus.

Also, Martha Stewart.com was selling an Atlas Marcato cookie press for $35; the color was the only difference I could find between that model and one for $22.99 at InterCenter.

She notes that the cheese straws require a “food processor, cookie press and cookie sheet” and that “you can buy these items at your local grocery store or retail store for about $30.”

Pack the dough in batches into a cookie press and press through the flat, ridged-line opening onto an ungreased cookie sheet to form "straws" of about 2 1/2 to 3 inches in length.

The boys and I had our usual intensive Christmas baking sessions, too, with the requisite cookie-cutter sugar cookies, Spritz cookies shaped with a cookie press, and of course, a double batch of chocolate chip.

Second, while it is in fact possible to find name-brand food processors for $29.95, that only leaves a nickel for the baking sheet and cookie press, not to mention things like knives and spoons, which a good party host cannot be without.