How to make a cookie cutter

Here lately, I have had a ton of orders for cookies. I think cookies are starting to replace the cupcake fad. Personally, I am more of a cake person and always associate cookies with Christmas. I always loved decorating Christmas cookies, but have only recently started using royal icing and "flooding" my cookies. It's REALLY time consuming, but the results are awesome!

Unfortunately, cookie cutters are not that easy to find around these parts. Your basic shapes are, but sometimes you even have to search for those. I looked into ordering some online, but the shipping for one cookie cutter was more than the cutter itself! Anyways, I had made a couple of fondant cutters a few years back and decided to google a way to make cookie cutters. I found a YouTube video of a girl who made them out of the disposable foil pans. I already had a few of them at home that I was supposed to use for a craft project so I didn't even need to leave the house to go get supplies :) Here is a little tutorial on how I made them:

Here are the foil cookie sheets. I'm not even sure what the real name is for them. You can cut them with craft scissors. They are heavier than foil, but not too heavy to cut.

I used a ruler to bend the foil over about an inch. I folded it twice so that my cutter had three layers of foil.

Here is the cutter formed into an circle and the ends are taped together with scotch tape ( I know, kinda ghetto). I think you can use a special glue, but I was in a hurry and knew that I probably wouldn't need these to last me a lifetime.

Here is the fun part. I did a very quick sketch of the truck shape that I wanted and then formed the circle of foil into the shape and taped it together. One thing to keep in mind is that these cookie cutters are flimsy. They are not as sturdy as the ones that you buy. If the shapes I needed were easy to find, I wasn't so short on time, and they didn't cost an arm and a leg to ship, I would choose to buy them. Bought ones are easier to use and they have a more clean cut.

Here are three shapes I made for recent orders. One benefit of making them is that you can make them big. I feel like if I am selling cookies I want them to be BIG and worth the cost.

 

As you can tell, the edges aren't all that smooth but you can't tell once they are decorated. Here they are all "prettified"...

 

Happy 2nd Birthday Emma!

Here is my sweet niece, Emma Grace, who turned 2 this past weekend and celebrated her big day at Chuck E Cheese! She is in love with fairies, princesses, Dora and anything girly. Her new favorite Disney movie is "Tangled" so I made her a Rapunzel birthday cake. In this post I am going to try to give you the "how to" in making a princess cake. I have been really slack on taking pics during the process of making my cakes, but actually took the time to do so with this cake. So here it goes....

I bought a cake pan made for doll cakes and a Rapunzel barbie doll. I usually don't like putting things on my cakes that I have not made/molded from fondant, etc. I want my cakes to be 100% created by me, but in this case I thought it might look cheesy if I made the doll out of fondant. So I set aside my pride and went to Target to buy Rapunzel. I had so much fun browsing the aisles of barbies and baby dolls. Don't get me wrong, I love my little boy, but I do think it would be fun to have a girl one day :) Anywho, I found "Punz" (this is what Emma calls her) and had a lot of fun spending a few days playing with her...

Here she is just hangin' out in the kitchen while I make her dress out of yummy chocolate cake!

Here is the pan that I baked the cake in. I was surprised how even it cooked given the shape.

I iced the cake with buttercream and then started the fun part of creating the dress! Added this lighter shade of purple fondant for the inside part of her dress and.....

I start to make some edible paint by mixing clear vanilla and food coloring. This is one of my fave things to do - painting cakes! Here I am painting away and getting purple fingers in the process.

And here I have added another piece of fondant for the outer layer of the dress. Just need to clean it and trim it up.

This is where I ran into a problem. I have learned through making cakes to allow time for trial and error! At first I though I could leave her legs on and stick her down in the cake...well she ended up being too tall so I decided to break off her legs. I thought they would easily pop back on like they did on my barbies when I was a kid but I was wrong. Apparently, Punz is a much better quality and she didn't like being torn apart. The doll was also part of Emma's present so I hate that I broke her. Sometimes I have to take extreme measures to make a cake look good!  

Do you like how I gave Punz a bathing suit?? Gotta keep the blog family friendly :)

And here she is in her new attire. I added a little "bling" (not edible) and added her bodice. I always use clear vanilla as a glue to stick everything on my cakes. You can do this process with any barbie and you can also buy generic dolls specifically made for this type of cake that come with no legs.

 Gotta run cause my lil guy is hungry! Have a great day.