That certainly doesn’t stop people from amassing them, as evidenced by the Cookie Cutter Collectors Club website. Most cookie cutters aren’t especially valuable, even the vintage ones, so don’t pin your Antiques Roadshow hopes on them. Shapes have always run the gamut and these days consumers can find almost any cookie cutter design imaginable, especially with the increasing popularity of 3D printing. Plastic entered into the mix not long after, but copper has remained a popular material throughout the years. Aside from our waistlines, perhaps it’s a good thing holiday cookies have only been cut once a year!īy the mid- to late-19th century, metal cookie cutters began to be mass produced in America, with tin giving way to aluminum by about the 1930s. Many of these early cutters were crafted with a lead-based solder and as such so, ironically, they should not be used for anything edible. The flat backs hewed closely to the shape of the cutters so as not to waste any metal, and it’s surmised that those with actual handles didn’t appear in America until post-Independence. As a result, pre-Revolutionary cookie cutters were scrupulously fashioned with tin scraps. However, cookie makers ultimately realized that metal cut dough better than wood, so thin strips of tin and copper began to be used by the early 1700s.Īlas, England put the kibosh on tin production in the Colonies, turning it into an expensive material that had to be imported. by European immigrants.ĭutch and German settlers in Pennsylvania became known for their abundant Christmas cookie production, as well as their ornately carved molds. Like so many culinary traditions, this one was also brought to the U.S. What was first known outside the United States as “biscuit cutters” were elaborately hand-carved out of wood, especially those hailing from Germany’s Black Forest region. Most of the early ones were “imprint cutters,” meaning they not only cut the shape but also pushed a design into the surface of the dough. They were already in fairly widespread use throughout the rest of Europe and the United Kingdom by the 1500s. Shaped cakes date back to ancient Egypt, but cookie cutters as we know them are believed to have originated in Italy before the 1400s. Many of those evoked a homespun folk art aesthetic that wasn’t necessarily holiday themed but somehow fit within the collection. For some reason, this family assortment also contained a lot of animals such as a bear, a duck and not just one, but two sitting cats and two horses.
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