Baking for a Newbie....

[PMJ]

I enjoy baking, don't do it all the time, but for-see (sp?) that increasing b/c DD loves to be in the kitchen and of course it's fun to do w/ her! Few questions...

1) Would 3-5 cookie cutters be sufficient per holiday?

2) Holidays I was going to buy for: Xmas, Halloween, V-day.... anything else popular out there?

3) Can cookie cutters only be used w/ Sugar cookie dough, right?

4) When you make say a Halloween batch full of cats, pumpkins etc -- do you use different colored icing for each cookie? I imagine that would take quite a while...

thanks :)

[sunshine873]

1&2 - Disclaimer: I haven't made cutouts very often. I have had terrible luck at rolling the dough out properly. :( Hopefully I can figure it out soon though, because DD is getting to the perfect cookie decorating stage. :) Anyway...I bought a huge batch of cookie cutters at Wal-Mart a few years ago for $10. It has every holiday, letters/numbers, trucks, trains, planes, animals, etc. Love it. Mind you, they're plastic - but they seem to do the trick (& double as great toys for play-doh.)

3 - Don't forget about gingerbread! :)

4 - We decorate with multiple colors. Usually make frosting & then split it up into a few small bowls (red, blue, yellow, green.)

[crl]

I have just heart, star, flower and easter egg haped cookie cutters. I have never made Halloween, but I think just one per holiday is actually enough. :). We use the stars for Christmas and and random things, the heart for Valentine's Day and the flower and Easter egg for Easter.

We aren't very fancy decorators and so far have done just one color icing and used sprinkles for different colors. You can definitely divide a batch to make different colors though.

I have used my cookie cutters for sandwiches. I think there are also recipes much like cheese straws where you can use cookie cutters. I think sugar cookies are the only cookies you can use them on. Most cookies don't hold there shape that well when baked.

Catherine