This Grandma’s Recipe Is So Good, Her Family Etched It on Her Gravestone

Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today for a celebration of life... with treats! Cherished great-grandmother and passionate home baker Naomi Odessa "N.O." Miller-Dawson died in 2009, but with her blessing—and her family's sixth sense for memorializing her signature bake on her Brooklyn gravestone—her secret recipe for spritz cookies lives on.

I've seen some pretty elaborate gravesites in Los Angeles, but I've never heard of a celebrity letting a chili con carne recipe steal one inch of their posthumous spotlight. However, Naomi must have known that her sprtiz cookies were a star. According to To Die For: A Cookbook of Gravestone Recipes by Rosie Grant, recipes on gravestones are becoming a tradition for countless other bakers.

How Spritz Cookies Landed on a Tombstone

Trust me: One bite of these crisp, buttery morsels is all it takes to see why these spritz cookies needed to be etched in history. Thank you, Naomi.

The story goes that Naomi baked this recipe, which she snipped from a newspaper, so often and for so many people that it surged past her notable carrot cake and oatmeal raisin cookies to land on the headstone. The dough comes together in minutes, bakes even faster, and makes dozens of bakery-worthy cookies. I couldn't help but wonder how Naomi enjoyed hers as I snuck a few straight out of the oven with a hot cup of coffee. Pure heaven.

How to Make Naomi's Spritz Cookies

To make Naomi's Spritz Cookies, you'll need:

• 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 egg
• 2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• Sprinkles, for decorating (optional)

For the dough, cream the butter in a large bowl, then beat in the sugar, vanilla, and the egg. In a separate medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, and salt. Then, gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, and stir to combine. Chill for 30 minutes in the fridge.

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Once the dough has firmed, transfer it to a cookie press, squeeze the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet, roughly 2 inches apart. Bake until slightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Cool for five minutes on the baking sheet, then move to a rack to cool completely.

Tips for Making Spritz Cookies

• Use an ungreased, unlined cookie sheet. The dough needs to stick to the pan for the cookie press to work.
• Instead of refrigerating the dough, I found it easier to work with it at room temperature.
• Using a cookie press is easier than you think. (The clicking of each cookie drop gives label maker vibes, which is the kind of organizational ASMR I'm into.)
• Spritz dough makes the perfect canvas for a few drops of food coloring or sparkly sanding sugar. Those types of decorations should be added before baking, so they stick. However, icing or dipped chocolate should be added once the cookies have baked and cooled. 
• Pro move: Add peanut butter between two plain cookies for spritz PB sandwiches (chef's kiss).

I've decided that when I'm gone, my favorite chocolate brownie recipe will be etched onto my gravestone. It'll also feature a built-in Easy-Bake Oven with a vintage 100-watt lightbulb that's always on but still takes forever to bake, so you have to stay a little longer when you visit.