Introduction: Laser Cut Cookie Presses

By Support me!
About: I am a queer, transgender, nonbinary, and mixed-race picture book writer/illustrator. As a young person, I didn’t have the words to explain the big feelings I had about my identity and relationships. It is so …

A friend of mine is a huge Dr. Who fan and asked me to make her a Seal of Rassilon cookie press. This 1.5 in press took about 6 minutes to cut and it is easily scale-able if you'd like it bigger. After I did a test run with these cookie presses, I realized that I wanted some cookie presses too! Files for the following shapes are attached: Seal of Rassilon (Dr. Who), Star Trek federation insignia, Hello Kitty, "Cookie", ?, and 2015.

Materials:

  • Laser cutter
  • 1/4 inch acrylic or thicker
  • Cookie dough

In Illustrator I made two layers. The raster layer in black is the Symbol of Rassilon which will be engraved at least 1/8 inch, the red layer is a vector layer to cut through the acrylic. The attached shapes are slightly adjusted from the original and should work better.

Note: If you are designing these yourself, remember that these are stamps, so you need mirror images (object>transform>reflect>axis:vertical in Illustrator). Black is what gets cut, so if your image is white on black, you'll indent into the surface of the cookie. If your press is black on white, your image/text will be raised from the cookie.

Attachments

Step 1: Set Up Your Laser Cutter

Bonus Step: Rummage through trash to find suitable material. The Fab Lab just had a major cleanout, so there was plenty of spare acrylic. Cookie presses are pretty small and fit easily onto scrap pieces.


  1. Place and measure your material
  2. Focus your laser on your material
  3. Adjust power/speed to appropriate settings.
    1. I color coded it:
    2. black, raster, 10% speed, 500 PPI
    3. red, vector, 1% speed
  4. Print!

Those settings are highly dependent on your laser cutter. I was using a Universal Systems 32"x18" laser cutter. You may or may not need multiple passes. You'll know that you've cut all the way through the material when is slightly drops down. You'll want it to engrave as deep as possible. I like for it to be engraved about 1/8 of an inch deep, but it doesn't need to be perfect.

Tip: I like to leave the backing on when I cut, that way the bottom of the acrylic doesn't burn from flash back.

Step 2: Clean Up!

Peel off acrylic backing and wash off dust with dish soap.

Step 3: Make Cookies!

These work awesome with sugar cookies:

This is the recipe I use. Ready in 30 min!

Ingredients:

  • 2 3/4 cups flour
  • 1 t baking soda (opt for less rather than more)
  • 1/2 t baking powder (opt for less rather than more)
  • 2 sticks butter (1 cup)
  • 1 1/2 cups white sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 1 t vanilla extract

Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C) in a regular oven or 325 F in a convection oven.
  2. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside. This recipe is pretty forgiving. You can stir instead of sift if you prefer.
  3. With a stand mixer (or a large bowl and hand mixer), cream together butter and sugar until smooth
  4. Beat in egg and vanilla
  5. Gradually (1/2 cup at a time), mix in dry ingredients until just combined
  6. On an ungreased cookie sheet, place 1/2 tablespoonful (ish) sized balls of cookie dough.
  7. Squish balls with cookie press. (If your cookie dough sticks to the press, grease the press. It may or may not be necessary)
  8. Bake until edges are barely golden, about 5-10 minutes depending on your oven
  9. Let stand on cookie sheet 1 minute before transferring to wire racks.

Substitutions to make cookies vegan/lactose free/gluten free/reduced fat:

  • substitute egg for 1 tbs ground flax mixed with 3 tbs water
  • substitute butter for vegan margarine
  • 1:1 substitution gluten free baking mix for flour
  • replace half of the butter/margarine with applesauce, greek yogurt, or mashed avocado

*may need to bake slightly longer