Halloween Voodoo Dool Cookie Cutter

Somewhere between a gingerbread man and a horror-film prop, the voodoo doll is one of the better Halloween biscuit shapes: a stumpy stitched figure with a big round head and short, blunt limbs, readable the moment it comes off the tray and long before anyone has reached for the icing. The outline carries the joke and everything else gets piped on afterwards, which makes it a good cutter for a party where children are decorating their own. Cross-stitch eyes, a zigzag mouth, a couple of pins drawn in and the thing is finished. It belongs in the drawer alongside the pumpkins and the bats, and it tends to get used more than either, whether that means shortbread for a class party, gingerbread for a bake sale, or salt dough and sugarpaste for hanging decorations.