Patti Paige - You Cant Judge a Cookie by Its Cutter: Make 100 Cookie Designs with Only a Handful of Cookie Cutters

Here are the first four lines of a poem I wrote in second grade:

SOME COOKIES ARE ROUND,

SOME COOKIES ARE SQUARE,

SOME COOKIES HAVE ICING,

SOME COOKIES ARE BARE.

Its a pretty good description of the adventure we are about to go on. But first, a little background.

Ever since I can remember, I have made things. Whether it was a house for worms or a game to play, I was always creating something new, crafty, or quirky. As a grade schooler, I was never satisfied eating commercially prepared food. I had to make something: a batch of rice, or a pot of tomato sauce, or potato chips from scratch.

Except when it came to cookies. I was invariably drawn to the colorful boxes and bagsOreos, Mallomars, Fig Newtons, Lorna Doones, and Chips Ahoy!that filled our cupboards. It was my grandmothers cookies, however, that made the deepest impression on me. Whenever she visited us on Long Island, she always showed up with Nana Cookies, the name my family affectionately called the treats she baked in her Brooklyn kitchen. Using cream cheese dough and a cookie gun, she made dozens of shapes that, to an eight-year-old, were nothing short of magic. The various circles she attached to the end of the gun formed the cookies, much like my cookie cutters define the shapes of my cookies today. When I popped one of Nanas cookies into my mouth, I was always thinking about that shape and noticing the simple embellishmentsa maraschino cherry, a chocolate chip, an almond sliver. My grandmother eventually moved to Florida, gave up her cookie making, and left her pans and cookie gun to me.

Curiously, my mother never stepped foot in the kitchen; her favorite cookbook was The I Hate to Cook Book by Peg Bracken. But she did cultivate in me an intense love of games. After dinner, we always sat around the table to play card and board games. Bridge, Scrabble, gin rummy, Rack-O, and Sorry were among my favorites. Im sure thats why gamesnot just playing them but appreciating their graphic designsare such an important part of my life.

So my grandmother was all cookies and my mother was all games. I was lucky enough to inherit both passions.

Although it seemed from the start that I was going to be an artist or maker of some sort, I began college as an English major. Among my first electives was a class based on the work of Josef Albers, the father of modern color studies. The class assignments challenged me to play games with color relationships that would change the viewers perception of them. I was hooked. I loved working with shape, color, and design. This was the beginning of my obsession with transformation.

As a working artist, I made paintings in bold relief with major dimensionality. I layered paint thickly onto canvas, eliciting comments that my paint resembled frosting. As I pursued my dream of being a fine artist in New York City, I not only made paintings in my SoHo studio but put Nanas pans and cookie gun to good use and made cookie gifts for friends. At parties, guests couldnt get enough of them.

Emboldened by these raves, I took my cookies to two nearby specialty food stores, both of which kept renewing their orders. Then I aimed even higher and made Dean & DeLuca my next client. Ill never forget walking into the original SoHo store, full of confidence and certain my cookies would sell. Soon, I was fielding requests for other varieties, and thats when I expanded to making classic chocolate chip and peanut butter cookies. Bloomingdales called not long after, and in 1979 Patti Paige Baked Ideas was born.

Eventually, I needed to create something else entirely, beyond the cream cheese, chocolate chip, and peanut butter doughs, so I began to bake gingerbread and construct gingerbread houses. Ive probably made every iconic building in New York City, along with dozens of private homes. Many of these made it into the New York Times, the New York Daily News, and numerous magazines.

When I was asked to bake a cake for an art opening, my two worlds suddenly collided. One commission led to several others, but it was the one for Acorn Press that moved me to think more inventively about cookie shapes. Unable to find the right acorn cookie cutter, I made one myself, which opened up endless possibilities. Making my own cutters distinguished me from every other baker; I made unique frames for unique cookies. Crazy custom cookie orders began to roll inthe iconic soldier that stands outside the Cartier store, the face of Dennis Rodman, the box of Tide for a brand anniversary. My clients have included Hillary Clinton (who ordered NYC taxi cab cookies for one of her luncheons)