Cookie Cutter Week

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By Diane Forrest,

As long as I can remember, every year at Christmas I have cut out cookies.  I love the sugar cookies in the Christmas tree shapes, Santa’s, bells and stars.  I have cut out candy canes and gingerbread men and snowmen.  It's one of the best parts about Christmas baking.    This tradition started many years ago when my girl's church group met over at the leader's house to bake cookies.  I’m sure you can guess how that ended up.  We ended up eating all the dough and maybe baked a dozen cookies, but it was the best fun ever.

In the past year I have been doing alot of baking.  It keeps me busy and lets me show my family that even though they are far away, they are still close to my heart.

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In January, my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary, what better way to celebrate than with cookies cut in a 5 and 0? Next, I turned around and there was Valentine's Day.  Luckily I had a heart shaped cookie cutter and was able to bake up some valentine goodies.  St. Patrick's Day came and there were shamrocks to bake.  The Easter bunny brought bunny faces and decorated eggs and the stars came out for the 4th of July.  Halloween saw ghosts and black cats and now it is Christmas time again.

If you live in a small town like I do it may not be easy to find the special cookie cutter you are looking for.  I have some very old ones that have been handed down, and some new ones that I found online and a great cat shaped one from a friend of mine.

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Cookie cutters are a great gift for someone with small children.  Not only can you make fun cookies to enjoy, but also a lifetime full of memories.  You can use them to make cookies and also cut out bread for special sandwiches, or even cover the cut out bread with birdseed to hang in your trees during Christmas time.  You can also use them to cut out dough for hardening and painting for Christmas ornaments on your tree.

They come in all kinds of shapes and materials, but I have found the best are tin or copper outlines.  The plastic ones don't cut as smoothly, and it’s hard to get the dough out of the solid cutters.

This week is Cookie Cutter Week.  Why not get an early start on your cookie baking and pull out some cutters and make up a batch to share with family and friends?