I was a bit unsure about how this would work and I know a bit about large cookies cutters and their good qualities and their drawbacks. I started with the recipe that came with the cutter, rolled out the dough, and pressed the cookie cutter in. Some cookie cutters will quickly push through the dough to the cutting board, but this cutter did not. I had to do a combination of a push/wiggle to get it to the bottom. Once I felt I had pushed through the dough to the cutting board, I gently pulled the dough remaining around the cutter and pulled it away gently. Pulling out the cutter, as seen in photo one, shows that the interior cuts did not push all the way through. I'm not sure if the cookie cutter was designed this way deliberately or not, but the results were less than satisfactory and created a new set of problems. At first, I tried cutting all the tiny interior pieces out with the tip of a paring knife which was time consuming and not particularly effective. Instead, I rolled out the dough and cut another cookie, flipping the dough and cookie together upside down in my left hand seen in picture two. With the palm of my right, I gently pressed the interior dough so that the pieces pushed through. Flipping it over once again, I placed it on the cookie sheet and gently pried the dough out and placed it so that it was ready for baking. In photo three, you can see that all the pieces are completely cut out and free of dough. After baking, the cookie looked like photo number four, ready for decorating. This is a bit more work and not quite what people expect if they have been used to working with smaller cookie cutters or cutters with out intricate interior pieces. However, I wanted to try this because I didn't feel overly excited about making tons of cookies when I could make a few big ones instead! If I compare the extra time and care to press the cookie dough and push out the smaller pieces with a toothpick, far and away I used less time than if I make several with the smaller cutters. In addition, I felt that the delicate-like appearance of the snowflake cutter make the cookies even more lovely and more Christmas-like. One caveat though...I didn't feel that the recipe was working for me and seemed, after baking, a bit tough,. Instead, I chose to use an old family recipe that has honey in it, making the cookies not only beautiful to look at, slightly soft and chewy, and even better to taste! I chose to give this item only four stars as it came dented on one of the star tips (I pulled the dents out with a pair of pliers) and it is not a high end made cookie cutter, with the pieces not holding well, or the 'welds' not of sturdy quality.
