Christmas Cookie Cutter

Christmas baking has its own visual language, and a cutter is how you get it into dough: crisp outlines pressed out by the dozen, cooled on a rack and then handed over to whoever has been trusted with the icing. This is a festive set rather than a single shape, arriving as a bundle of files so one afternoon's baking can run through several designs. Cutters like these earn their keep in December — school fairs, office tins, the tray that goes next door, biscuits hung on the tree with a ribbon through a hole made before baking. They also make a sound small gift for anyone who bakes, printed as a set and handed over with a recipe card. Wash them by hand, put them away with the decorations, and they come back out every year.