smart cookies
Imaginative cookie cutters break the mold with offbeat designs sure to liven up your collection of go-to baking gear.
Tin cookie cutters, $2.50 to $5. Doodlet’s, 120 Don Gaspar Avenue, Santa Fe, NM, 505/983-3771, www.doodlets.info.
Soldered tin and stamped aluminum antique cookie cutters from the 1920s and 1930s, $8 to $18 each. Old Town Antiques, 404 San Felipe NW, Albuquerque, NM, 505/842-6657 or 505/238-7139, oldtownantiquesabq.com.
Copper chile cookie cutter, $6.95. Las Cosas Kitchen Shoppe, located in De Vargas Center, 181 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM, 505/988-3394; and 1740 Calle de Mercado, Suite A, Mesilla, NM, 575/541-9735, lascosascooking.com.
Copper dog cookie cutter, $6.95. Las Cosas Kitchen Shoppe, located in De Vargas Center, 181 Paseo de Peralta, Santa Fe, NM, 505/988-3394; and 1740 Calle de Mercado, Suite A, Mesilla, NM, 575/541-9735, lascosascooking.com.
Molded sugar birds and flowers with decorative sugar sprinkles, $1.09 to $2.59. The Specialty Shop, 5823 Lomas Boulevard NE, Albuquerque, NM 505/266-1212.
Tin buffalo cookie cutter, $1.69. The Specialty Shop, 5823 Lomas Boulevard NE, Albuquerque, NM, 505/266-1212.
Autumn marks the beginning of cookie-baking season. We wouldn’t refuse a cookie during the summer, of course, especially if it’s shaped like a trout and covered with pink icing and cobalt-blue sugar. But in the fall the baking gets rolling, and it’s the rolling and cutting I want to consider here. When you think of cutout cookies, classic shapes come to mind—pumpkins, stars, hearts, and bunnies—which follow the holidays from autumn through spring.
Several sources tie the creation of cookie-style cakes to seventh-century Persia. Eventually sugar was imported from Asia to medieval Europe, where the Germans decided to take cookies a step past the original drop style by fashioning them into shapes. Dutch and German settlers introduced cookie cutters to America. Today we can find cookie cutters representing the alphabet, each of the United States, every known icon from Halloween and the winter holidays, the classic heart shape, and perhaps most importantly for those with ties to the Southwest, the cactus, cowboy hat, buffalo, and chile.
If you search, you can find companies that will make your cookie cutter shape to order. That’s assuming it hasn’t yet been created. Theo Raven, owner of Doodlet’s in Santa Fe, has a great eye for distinctive cookie cutters; for example, Doodlet’s might be the only spot around with fire hydrant–shaped cutters.
Antique cookie cutters are fun to collect, beautiful to display, and still offer a useful tool for making cookies. In the 1930s cookie cutters were color coordinated to match the Bakelite and wooden handles of kitchenware.
Copper cookie cutters set the standard for gourmets who appreciate the strength, craftsmanship, and stability of a heavier cutter. After years of continued use, they will hold their shape and become heirlooms for future generations.
After baking cutout cookies, the process continues with the equally pleasurable step of decorating them. This is where you can really express yourself. The Specialty Shop in Albuquerque has decorations to match your wildest dreams. Imagine a field of sugar flowers on your house-shaped cookie or miniature hammers and saws for the house next door. A bird-shaped cookie with a tiny candy robin in the center is within your reach. Best of all, if your cookie doesn’t turn out to be the beautiful creation you imagined, you can eat it and begin again.
If you want professionally decorated cookies to dazzle your friends, you can enlist the help of Connie Bailey, who works at Las Cosas Kitchen Shoppe in Santa Fe. She will create up to two dozen delicious works of art for your next event.
In case you are wondering, this topic did prompt me to break out my favorite cookie cutters (with a few new additions) and whip up some sugar cookies, which were decorated by my two boys, both believers in the credo “more is more.”