DIY: make your own Hello Kitty cookie cutters / stencils

You can search high and you can search low, but sometimes the cookie cutter you want is simply not in existence.

Making your own custom shaped cookie stencil is pretty self-explanatory and I’m sure there are plenty of ways to do it, but here’s a quick step-by-step, peppered with one or two wisdoms I’ve gained from some failed and ugly cookies.

 

For this cookie, I only wanted her head. Sorry Kitty, may your soul rest in peace.

When I don’t conveniently have the physical printed image of a shape I want to make on hand, I just turn off all the lights in the room and trace an image straight off of my laptop screen.  A regular 8.5″ x 11″ paper does just fine, but cardstock is too thick.

It’s also important that you back your stencil with cardstock or some other thick paper so that you can lean your knife against it the edge without it crinkling up and generally #$!@ ing it all up.

Going around the edge of the stencil, I like to STAB, not DRAG the knife.  The dough tends to stick to the tip of the knife and dragging causes little rips in the dough (see below). Stabbing results in a much cleaner cut.

The top kitty was dragged. The bottom kitty was stabbed.  Sorry for the morbid descriptions.

You would think small imperfections like that would disappear in the oven, but it it doesn’t.  You can always try to smooth the edges with your fingers before they go in the oven, but I like to take preventative measures against tedious tasks like that.

 

And there it is!

tutorial courtesy of  bake greek