Testing Cookie Presses

Each press has a tube that holds the dough, with a perforated shaping disk at one end and a handle at the other. After loading the dough, you place the cookie press base on a baking or cookie sheet, squeeze the handle, and out pops a picture-perfect, oven-ready dough design—if the press works well.

The OXO Good Grips Cookie Press with Disk Storage Case won our last testing, but over time it turned out to be unreliable. (We stock the test kitchen with our winning products, so we can monitor performance over months and years and update our reviews accordingly). In the case of our winning cookie press, we noticed that the ratcheting mechanism eventually jammed and the handle could snap off. We demoted it and named a new winner—which was later discontinued—so we decided to retest these gadgets, excluding our previous winner because of its performance issues. We rounded up four presses priced from $25.99 to $42.00 and started spritzing.

After pressing more than 1,400 cookies, we found that three qualities mattered most in a cookie press: consistency of shaping, durability, and­—most important—the appearance of the cookies. Most performed well in two of those areas, but the real challenge was finding a press that did well in all three.

The cookies’ visual appeal was paramount. The presses came with anywhere from 12 to 20 shaping disks in different forms, from hearts and Christmas trees to camels and butterflies. Most of the presses gave us nice crisp designs, but we demoted one that fell short; its hearts looked more like lily pads, and its flowers were sometimes asymmetrical. The best presses created attractive, well-defined cookies in a variety of shapes.

Consistency of portioning and shaping was also crucial. We wanted a press that could easily punch out row after row of identical cookies without jamming. We found in past testings that cold dough can be hard for presses to push out and that warm dough can be too soft and clingy, which can gum up the machines and make for misshapen cookies.

To determine how finicky the presses were with doughs of different temperatures, we tested each with both 65- and 75-degree dough, representing the low and high ends of the range of average room temperature. Two models had infrequent, minor consistency issues—an occasional jam or incomplete shape—but were generally consistent. Two cookie presses had more serious issues, however. One press sometimes produced beautiful shapes but other times spat out half-formed cookies, and it really struggled with warmer dough. Another struggled regardless of the dough’s temperature; it couldn’t extrude its pumpkins, and its snowmen were beheaded.

Finally, we spritzed dozens and dozens of cookies to see which presses would last through holiday baking extravaganzas for years to come. Only one failed: Its handle stopped working over time. The rest kept performing as they did when they were new.

In the end, only one cookie press, the Marcato Biscuit Maker ($42.00), passed all our tests. It consistently produced precisely shaped cookies with ease. However, it did have a few minor drawbacks. The press had a toggle that allowed us to choose between two cookie sizes, but we sometimes inadvertently switched the toggle while using the press, resulting in cookies that suddenly changed size. Another drawback: We had to insert disks with a certain side facing down, so we sometimes needed to refer to the instructions to jog our memories. Lastly, the plunger rod needed to face a certain way during operation (so that the ratcheting mechanism was properly aligned), giving us one more thing to remember. In short, there’s a learning curve for our winning press, but the process felt easy after pressing a few dozen cookies.

Winning Traits

• Produced visually appealing, uniform cookies

• Consistently produced cookies with intact designs dozens of times in a row without dough jamming and with no decline in cookie press performance

• Produced well-formed cookies at dough temperatures ranging from 65 to 75 degrees

• Withstood prolonged use with no decline in performance

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