National Cookie Cutter Day Date in the current year: December 1, 2024

Cookie cutters, also called biscuit cutters outside North America, are tools used to cut out cookie dough in a particular shape. In addition to their main purpose, cookie cutters can be used for cutting, forming, molding, and shaping a variety of foods, including fruit, meat patties, pancakes, and sandwiches.

It is believed that first molds for shaping dough were used by Ancient Egyptians more than 4,000 years ago. Modern cookie cutters, however, originated some time around the 15th century. They became popular in the 18th century, as gingerbread became widely available, and were brought to the Americas by European settlers.

Cookie cutters can be made of metal (aluminum, copper, stainless steel or tin), plastic, ceramic, or wood. They come in numerous shapes, ranging from basic geometric shapes to human-shaped cutters for making gingerbread men, but all cookie cutters can be divided into five main types:

• Cutouts: simple cookie cutters that are pressed into dough to cut it out in the shape of the cutter’s outline.
• Detail imprints: similar to cutouts, but they also imprint a design onto the surface of the dough.
• Cookie molds: molds in the shape of a flat disc or a rolling pin with an embossed design. They are pressed into the dough to transfer the design on its surface.
• Cookie presses: gun-shaped devices with a set of perforated plates used to extrude cookie dough in different shapes.
• Cookie cutting sheets: plastic sheets with dozens of cutouts that can be used to make a sheet pan worth of cookies.

Cookie cutters are typically coated with a thin layer of flour or oil to keep them from sticking to the dough and distorting the shape of cookies.

The best way to celebrate National Cookie Cutter Day is, of course, to bake fun-shaped cookies and experiment with different cookie shapes, sizes and flavors. You can use the cookie cutters you already have, buy new ones, or even make cookie cutters yourself from aluminum flashing to have even more shapes available to you.

To make things more interesting, invite your friends and family and have a cookie bake-off or a cookie exchange party. If you end up baking too many cookies (although we’re convinced there is no such thing as too many cookies), you can give some to your neighbors or donate them to charity.

Don’t forget to take photos of your fun-shaped cookies and share them on social media with the hashtag #NationalCookieCutterDay to spread the word about this amazing holiday and encourage others to celebrate it.

If you can’t find time to bake cookies on December 1, it’s okay! National Cookie Cutter Day is the first day of the National Cookie Cutter Week, which is held during the first week December, so you have a whole week ahead of you to bake fun-shaped cookies and share them with the people you love.