And should I fantasise about mesh stockings, I reserve the right to imagine fillings other than cheap chocolate.

Perhaps the Bible in those days had an irate editor who demanded to know the details.

Johan (6), you're right -- it's the specificity that makes that story.

Re that Victorian bicycle -- Firma König also has Montgolfier's balloon, and an early locomotive that Mike would have liked a great deal.

> My favorite standard cookie cutters are dinosaurs.

Once again we see the importance of sodomy/dinosaur balance.

I'll have to get one or two to try for my gingerbread. The nautilus and the owl are very nice, but I'd also like some holiday ones. I wonder if I can modify my current butter cookie recipe to work with these. One of the sites has a Cream Cheese Butter Cookie recipe for use with molds, so I have hope.

I'd also be very wary of a dough that has a lot of butter in it. But fortunately, the mold-mongers have recipes on the sites, too.

My kitchen feels positively underdressed now.

(And the ritual decapitation of same....)

Anybody find where they say what these molds are made of? I assume the originals are wood, but I also assume that these copies are not.

"There's an island way out in the sea
Where the babies they all grow on trees..."

Because of a child's christmas in whales, of course, why do you ask?

I was going to post that, but waited for lunchtime.

"The Baby Tree" was written by Rosalie Sorrells.

From the ITC site: "Only none poisonous material is used for the molds made by Dukasi in order not to pose any health hazards during the production process and for the user. It is a ceramic like material. Food grade shellac is used as a paint to prevent sticking of the dough to the mold and to protect it against water when cleaning it."

The Firma König site describes their molds as being made of food-safe "Kunstholz", which I am informed is a mixture of plastic and sawdust.

As for suggestive motifs, how about "Two Angels With Candle"? (Yes, I seem to be 12 today.)

I did like the St. Martin cutting the cloak mold, too, though it's hard to imagine eatingj that.

Upon reflection, I think there was an ulterior motive behind the offer of the tins....

TNH: Oh, you're absolutely right that Mike would love that Eisenbahn. Me, I came to check out Martin Luther's head, but the Biedermaier mermaid has got a much stronger hold on me now. But what really gladdens me is the recipes and how-to information. I have a cookie mold hanging in the kitchen that I meant to show you when you were in town, but I forgot: it's about ten inches in diameter, and has all sorts of thing in what appears to be a town scene: those Dutch-type houses with the stepped fronts and hoists off the front of them, and a rather grand cathedral-looking thing with two towers and six elaborate arched windows, and a river running through the town with boats on it, and a big dock in the front with a boat full of people who seem to be unloading or loading a lot of goods, and a guy dressed vaguely like Sir Walter Raleigh supervising. The town has a fancy stone gate with three little towers flying pennants, and most of the buildings have tiled roofs. There are also a bunch of birds flying around who are clearly Not To Scale, or else this is a fantasy novel cookie, and three guys in a boat who seem to be wearing porkpie hats and rowing away really fast. Oh, and it's also got a mermaid with a seahorse tail who seems to be keeping an eye on the dock scene. There is also what looks vaguely like the silhouette of a tank, but that's just plain wrong. (And now I really want Mike, because he would make up the Kelly's Heroes Crossover version of this cookie mold. Hee!)

I should take a photo. Or make a cookie and photograph that.

Good idea. "Here, have a Shakespeare cookie!"
"Thanks! Which play?"
"Titus Andronicus. Go on, have another!"

Actually, some years I've not come across springerle at all during the Christmas Season, much less early enough for them to age properly, and even pffernussen can be scarce, (My Swiss-born maternal grandfather was a baker, and a particular fondness for both these kinds of cookies lingers.)

But not ones made with these molds . . . graven images!

Although I hasten to add that my orthography and yours are functionally equivalent, especially when using a non-German keyboard, in the same way that 'and' and '&' are.

I'd plead "using an obscure Switzerdeutsch dialect" if I thought I could get away with it, or that there wouldn't be a Certified Expert on such dialects, here.

My Swiss/German is pretty much limited to about a dozen food-related words, and a few literary catch-phrases (such as "Kennest du das lande woh zie Citroen varoomen...") mostly rendered via a highly-original phonetic system and filtered through a cloudy memory.

ü gives ü.

And btw ß gives ß.