Making do: Creating a Onesie Cutout Cookie

Last week I was making cookies for a baby shower at work.  My go-to place for cookie cutters (a small bulk food store close to home) had a cute elephant and I found a neat sun-burst cutter that I decided I would use for a lion to fit the shower's jungle theme.  But I really wanted a onesie cookie cutter.  Being the procrastinator I am, I was shopping 2-3 days before I wanted to make the cookies.  No time for online purchases and shipping (and the inevitable $20 I'd throw in the cart with it).  So I got creative.

Baby Shower cookies

I began with a gingerbread woman cutout (I didn't think a gingerbread man cutout would do as it wouldn't give the little middle piece between te legs). However, I found that using a ghost cutter also worked with a little more hand shaping it actually was less rounded.

To begin: roll your dough and cut out the pieces. You don't need to worry about making complete cookies as you'll be beheading them in addition to cutting off the hands and rounding them out to make the leg holes.

Lots of overlapping pieces to cut down on the amount of scraps to reroll.

Peel away the extra dough and move your cookies away from each other to keep from cutting the others.

Create the collar by rounding the neck with a round cutter.

If necessary, shape to make the onesie cookie straighter.  Then round the leg holes with a round cookie cutter.

Cut off the arms to make cap sleeves.

Bake. Decorate. Enjoy!

Yes, this is several somewhat tedious steps and produces lots of scraps, but for the procrastinator, it works.

Some other things I noticed while working:
Instead of a onesie make a dress! Less cutting. And still super cute. (and less messing up the leg holes).  You might want to trim off the feet in addition to rounding the head and cutting the arms into sleeves.  Have a straight-edged dress or make it riffled with a pastry wheel.

Use a fluted round for frilly neck lines and leg holes to make it a little more girly.