The holiday season is upon us and one of my favorite annual tasks is the art of cookie baking. Cut-out cookies are a uniquely American form of baking as they are considered biscuits among other things in other countries. I have hosted many cookie decorating parties and this year the tradition will return. I collect a handful of things - cufflinks, plants, Original Cast albums. But my cookie cutter collection has gotten big enough that I nabbed a garage sale plastic chest to store them all in. There is a drawer for Christmas shapes. One for various other holiday seasons. And a third for unusual options from kangaroos to roller skates. I just bought a new one in the shape of a fox and am going to make gingerbread red foxes instead of men.
I recently found this short video that shows how actual metal cookie cutters are made on an assembly line. It is an interesting process that makes such logical sense on viewing.
The adjective of being "Cookie cutter" that has come into our vernacular over the last century is that something alludes to conforming or being exactly like those that have come before and after. Ironically this is the total opposite of how I view myself. I like to think that the shape of each piece of pastry may be the same, but it is the frosting, color and decorations added to them that make each unique. I believe the last time I had my cookie party, I made a challenge to take the shape of the cut-out and conform the cookie into something transformed!
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