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The Slovak Medovnicky is more than a cookie. It is a form of folk art.
The cookies are decorated with icing trim and dried. They can last for years or you can eat them as fast as you make them. We have a Rosary made in the 1960's that still looks great today.
The Medovnicky cookies can make your party, picnic, wedding, or special occasion foods table unique.
The Sisters of Saint Basil made the Slovak honey cakes famous in America by baking them every year for the annual Byzantine Catholic Pilgrimage to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. It wouldn't be Labor Day weekend without their famous Medovniky.
This cookie cutter is hand made of beautiful thick solid copper. Great for making Medovnicky.
The size of the cross is 6 1/2 inch by 4 inch. Large enough to easily decorate and trim the cookies.
Lesley, the founder of the company that makes this cookie cutter, needed cookie cutters for her son's birthday treats at school. As a teacher herself, she knew that cookies were much neater in the classroom than cake or cupcakes. She also thought it would be a fun family activity to bake and decorate cookies with her son.
Naively, she went to her nearest kitchen supply store to purchase a large "7" cookie cutter and an equal sized "M", for Michael. She found neither. Undaunted, she went to another store, then another. The only time she came close to finding what she was looking for was when she found a small metal tin containing the entire alphabet, unfortunately, the cookies cutters were all less than an inch tall.
She began to ask around. Friends and acquaintances confirmed her experiences. Good quality cookie cutters that were large enough to decorate but not too big to eat were just about impossible to find. Small plastic Santa's and Christmas trees were easy to locate, but unfortunately she didn't have a need for either of these. She made phone calls to friends and relatives in different cities and asked them to check, still no luck.
She and her husband, Al took a trip to Napa Valley later that same year. While visiting the Culinary Institute Lesley found some cookie cutters that were, except for the design, exactly what she had been looking for. They were big enough to decorate but not too big to eat.
They were made of sturdy, beautiful copper. She showed them to Al and, as they remember it, "Lights went off and bells chimed."
At first Lesley and Al looked for cookie cutter manufacturers to represent. Their thought was they would find a quality manufacturer and dabble at marketing their cutters. They found several but none had the variety they were looking for. Also, as the business grew, none were able to keep up with the supply they required.
Al, has always been a pretty handy fellow. One Saturday he left the house early saying he was going to the hardware store. He was gone most of the morning and early afternoon (this was not an unusual length of time for Al to be gone when he went to the hardware store). When he returned, he had several bags of "stuff". He retired to his workroom to, "try something". After many hours of puttering, he came out of his workroom and handed Lesley a piece of copper that he had bent and riveted into the number seven. It was about 5" tall. "Is this what you're looking for?" he asked Lesley. It was indeed.
Al continued to work on and improve his cookie cutter making skills. He increased his repertoire to include animals, holiday designs, vehicles and vegetables. For Valentine's Day he presented Lesley with a beautiful stemmed rose cookie cutter. Lesley had all the cookie cutters she could ever want; it was time to take their own cookie cutters on the road.
As people discovered what Al was capable of, the orders and requests for additional cutters began to pour in. At this point Al had to decide whether to keep his job as the national sales manager for a computer software company or go to work full time making cookie cutters. He took the leap and in 1997 and became self-employed.
An interesting note is that most of the cutters are now shaped by stay at home moms. Because of a worker shortage in their area, part-time employees are almost impossible to find. Al had solved his problem and created many jobs for women who otherwise wouldn't be able to afford to work. These ladies shape at home, working at their own pace and on their own schedule. Each cutter is hand formed.
Business was growing so fast that Al and Lesley needed help, but where to get it? As luck would have it, Al had lunch one day with an old acquaintance who, surprisingly, was looking for a new career opportunity. Jerry Primm, vice-president and general manager for an area auto parts distributor, was fascinated by Al's answer to his "What's new?" question. Negotiations began. In July of 1998 Jerry and his wife Linda joined the company. Jerry took over the manufacturing end of the business so Al could concentrate on marketing. All members agreed that the focus of the business would be the family. Their families, the families of their shapers, and the family traditions that cookie baking and decorating create among their customers are what their business would be all about.
The manager of a gift and book shop at an Eastern Christian orphanage found out about the work Al and Linda were doing with cookie cutters. They were approached about the possibility of making the solid copper cookie cutters in the traditional shapes of Medovniky. The Three Bar Cross Medovnicky cutter was the first final result. If the Three bar Cookie cutter is well received, other traditional Medovnicky patterns will be made in the future.
The solid copper Medovniky cutter is $14.95 plus shipping and handling.
Leave email to cookie@iarelative.com with your mailing address and we will get your Three Bar Cross cookie cutter on the way to you along with an invoice for your total purchase.
Shipping and handling is $3.50 per order no matter how many you may order.
You can also pay via safe and secure credit card payment via PayPal. Just click on the "Buy Now" button below.
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