Patent Application
20050076516
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the design and construction of cookie cutters of superior durability and aesthetic appeal. In particular, its unique construction provides a large flat surface which can be marked with text or artwork. This makes the article particularly useful as a promotional monogrammed item or as simply a kitchen utensil that is also an attractive decoration. The invention also relates to methods of making cookie cutters.
2. Description of Related Art
Cookie cutters are made of a wide range of materials including stainless steels, copper, plated steel, aluminum, and plastic. Their function is to simply cut a recognizable silhouette from rolled-out cookie dough. Most cookie cutters are inexpensive and are made from very light materials and are subject to damage or distortion during use or storage. One popular design is made by roll forming one edge of a strip of steel, and then cutting the strip to length and welding the two ends together to form a ring. The ring is placed into a multi-slide press such as a spring forming press and is bent into a shape. The roll formed edge helps retain the formed shape and provides a non-sharp edge to press against the hand when the cookie cutter is in use. These are simple, functional and inexpensive but are easily crushed or distorted if not handled and stored with great care. Although this design is not durable, the tooling and production are low cost and highly flexible over a wide range of shapes. It is not effective, however, on larger size cookie cutters, which tend to become very weak and distort easily.
Another popular cookie cutter is the plastic injection molded type. These are very low cost to manufacture but require a considerable up-front investment in designing and machining the mold tooling. Plastic cookie cutters are sold at a very low retail price and tend to be offered in sets such as the shapes or letters or numbers or animals. These, too, are functional for cutting dough but not adaptable to specialized marketing and, again, are not durable.
Aluminum cookie cutters have been deep drawn for many years. These feature a shape silhouette to cut dough but also have a solid top, which provides a good location to grip. The solid top also makes the drawn aluminum cookie cutters substantially stronger and far more crush resistant. Because of the nature of deep drawn parts, the range of shapes available with the aluminum cookie cutter is severely limited. And like the plastic molded type, these are very expensive to tool for production.
The present invention has been conceived to create a cookie cutter which is sturdy, durable, easy to clean, easy to use, aesthetically pleasing and easily adapted to specialty shapes. Its construction features a flat top surface which can be marked with texts such as recipes or holiday greetings or with illustrations. Briefly stated, the cookie cutter of my invention comprises a silhouette formed in a desired shape and carrying a dough-cutting shape at a front face; a plaque formed to conform with the shape of the silhouette and positioned at a rear face of said silhouette; and a polymeric adhesive material positioned on an inside surface of the plaque and joining the silhouette and plaque together.
Referring to
The silhouette 5 and the plaque 10 are now clamped together using a clamping tool 11 and a continuous layer of a polymeric material or polymer 12 such as a food grade polymer adhesive is cast into the cup formed by the clamped silhouette and plaque (
The cookie cutter made by the method of the present invention provides the following desirable characteristics:
A strip of stainless steel which is 0.020″ thick, 1″ wide and 15″ long was made into a ring 3 by welding the two ends together at weld bend 2. The ring 3 was formed into a silhouette 5 of a bell shape (not shown) on a multi-slide press. A piece of basswood, measuring ⅛″ thick, 3″ wide and 4″ long, was cut into the shape of a bell forming the plaque 10. A laser marking system was used to cut the wood and mark the surface of the wood with a holiday greeting phrase. The wood plaque 10 was placed on a horizontal surface with the text facing down, and the bell-shaped silhouette 5 was placed on the back surface of the plaque 10 so that the perimeters of the wood plaque 10 and silhouette 5 closely matched. The two pieces were clamped together and a food grade polymer 12 was poured into the metal silhouette 10 to a depth of approximately 0.050″. The polymer 12 sealed the surface of the wood plaque 10 and formed a filet joint to the steel around the perimeter. The resulting cookie cutter 1 provided a sturdy, attractive item which is appealing for its decorative nature and highly functional as a kitchen utensil. The cookie cutter 1 doubles as a holiday ornament or can be sent as a greeting.
A further embodiment of the present invention is depicted in
While specific embodiments of the invention have been described in detail, it will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that various modifications and alternatives to those details could be developed in light of the overall teachings of the disclosure. The presently preferred embodiments described herein are meant to be illustrative only and not limiting as to the scope of the invention which is to be given the full breadth of the appended claims and any and all equivalents thereof.
