Easy and Fun Holiday Cookies Using Vintage Cookie Cutters

Having a family, including me, who enjoys making and eating cookies requires I do a lot of baking for the holiday season.

Thankfully, I have a collection of cookie cutters that was started by my family and gifted to me.  Over the years I have added to that collection through purchases I have made in my travels to antique shows, shops, and auctions.  As newer cartoon and movie characters are made into cookie cutters I have a growing collection of newer cookie cutters featuring characters like SpongeBob, Casper, and Batman.




For the Christmas holiday the cookies remain traditional using the older cookie cutters designed to create cookies in the shapes of trees, stars, reindeer and Santa Clause.

Very early cookie cutters were made of tin and typically had no handle by which to hold the cutter. By the mid 1800's commercial machinery had developed in both the United States and Europe to the point manufacturers were creating and distributing cookie cutters in this fashion. Cookie cutters were offered for sale in catalogs, advertisements. During the first half of the 20th century aluminum and plastic were being used.

These 1940s gingerbread cookie cutters with self handles, have made hundreds of cookies by my hands alone. One year we had a gingerbread man theme tree decorated with more than 100 baked gingerbread men.  When the tree was put away for the season, the kids dipped the cookies in peanut butter and then outdoor bird seed and hung them on the bare tree limbs throughout the winter.  I am not sure who had more fun,the birds who ate the gingerbread treats or the kids who had fun identifying and keeping track of which birds were feeding at their buffet.


We know some shape cookie cutters were made in Germany because they are signed. They were probably made in 1906 or later.We know that others were imported by the S. Joseph Company.

Aluminum Cookie Cutters with Wood Knobs

The oldest known cutters with wood handles are pictured in a 1933 book, Kitchen Guide, The Aluminum Goods Manufacturing Company, Manitowoc, WI.  The cutters are aluminum card shapes with rivets all the way through the handles. The box is labeled “Trump Cooky Cutter Set.” The colors of knobs are known to be black, red, and green.  

A Quick Chronology

• 1750 The cookie cutter existed apart from the carved mold. At the end of the century tinsmiths in the United States begin making cutters.

• 1850 The development of machinery provided for the manufacture of cookie cutters. The first known documented catalog offering cutters is dated 1869

•  1905  Tinsmithing began to wane as cutters were both manufactured in the United States and imported from Europe, primarily from Germany. Advertising cutters were used by companies to proclaim their products.

• 1920  Aluminum cookie cutters were at the height in production.

• 1940  Plastic began to be used to produce cutters.

• 1950  Plastic and metal cutters continued to be manufactured.

• 1970  During this decade, the numbers of different designs as well as choice of styles of design increased. 

          The Cookie Cutter Collector’s Club was founded.

• 1980  Cookie cutters made in Japan gave way to Taiwan and then to Hong Kong. 

• China now is the major producer of cookie cutters for US markets. 

  

 Till next time Happy New Year !

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