Now, normally I am against buying any very specific kitchen implement, but somehow I got all lured in by these animal cracker cookie cutters. I am also generally against rolling out cookie dough (it’s a pain, you have to chill the dough first, and they’re rarely as good as non-rolled cookies). So I don’t know what I was thinking. But I will say that we had a great time making them (once we figured out that you need to dip the cookie cutters in flour first so they don’t stick) (and once I realized that it’s important not to overbake them because then all the cute little lines disappear and they’re just vaguely animal-shaped blobs).

I got these a few weeks ago, when Sutswana was watching the boys and told me that if I went home and cleaned my house she’d never watch them again. So I went to the mall and bought a bunch of makeup, and suddenly wandered into Williams-Sonoma. I am sorry to say that these cookie cutters are inexplicably no longer listed on the website. Maybe they’ll bring them back? Or maybe your local store has them, like mine did.

There’s a recipe on the box, but we made Cinnamon Animal Crackers from The Good Cookie, my favorite cookie cookbook. They were insanely good. I actually meant to take a photo of our cookies, but they got eaten too quickly. I will next time.