I'm thinking of adapting a peanut butter cookie recipe to cashew butter, and/or macadamia nut butter.

I presume everybody here is familiar with the usual peanut butter cookie tradition of forming the cookie dough into small balls, then mashing them down twice with a fork, leaving a crosshatch imprint.

It seems to me that cashew-butter and macadamia-nut-butter cookies ought to have a similar, yet recognizably different imprint.

But from what implement? Any ideas? It seems to me that a potato masher would be too big, and a slotted spoon might also be too big. I looked at the tiny little "tartlet" molds at the local Sur la Table, but the smallest of them looked too big, as well.

And I certainly want to use something that's food-safe (which rules out, say, casting some dingbat in "linecasting metal" on the Ludlow machine at the Printing Museum: while I understand that tin may be an essential trace nutrient, lead and antimony are most profoundly NOT "Good Eats." )

Some sort of shaker-top, maybe?

Any insights? Some cake decorating implement I've never heard of?

You can buy a meat tenderizer and use the nubby end to make an imprint, just use a light touch obviously.  :)
 

Hmm. When I'm tenderizing round steak for Swiss steak, I normally just attack it violently with a pair of dinner forks (cheaper than what Alton Brown describes as a "needling device," and probably more effective than a mallet).

And when I'm pounding turkey cutlets for turkey schnitzel, I just use my fist.

But for this, it's definitely a thought. Though again, it would have to be an awfully small meat mallet, probably too small to actually be practical for pounding meat.

And I'm also thinking, "what's cheap or free?"

Ahttp://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/assets/product_images/230/5551914263225P.JPG

how about using a cookie cutter smaller than the cookie. use it lightly for the imprint only.  you could use a star shape or flower shape.

My suggestions:

Flatten with a flat-bottomed glass (greased) and then use aspic cutters http://www.amazon.com/dp/B000I1ZYB6/?tag=cakecentral-20

or Linzer cookie cutters: http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/product.asp?sku=18802414&utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&gclid=CIz27fKx7bMCFSTZQgod6yEAPg

(like teesy tiny cookie cutters) but don't cut all the way through.

A cookie stamp (or stamps):http://baking-supplies.kitchenkrafts.com/search?w=cookie+stamp&image1.x=12&image1.y=9

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002ZHVIKW/?tag=cakecentral-20

 I think I may have found something: assuming I don't use up my currently-almost-full bottle of dried chopped basil soon enough to adapt its shaker-top (I don't hold out much hope), I found some empty shaker-top spice jars at BB&B for only a buck apiece, with an interesting pattern of holes that just might do it.

Then I did some window-shopping at a couple of different gourmet/organic grocers, and found a bit of a shortage of cashew butter: Sprouts had none, and Whole Foods only had the most expensive brands.

"If we had some gin, we could make gin-and-tonic. If we had some tonic."

Whole Foods restocked their store-brand cashew butter, the spice bottle worked, and the cookies turned out decent enough, once I shortened the cooking time (about half the first sheet scorched when I used the time and temperature specified in my mother's old peanut butter cookie recipe).

If you had a food processor, you could make your own cashew butter anytime you like.  Raw or roasted, salted or unsalted...plus pumpkin seed butter, sunflower seed butter, hazelnut butter...heck, even peanut butter.  

If you are looking for the most useful kitchen gizmo ever, buy a Braun all-in-one package.  It has a food processor, blender, and mixer that all work off the same  motor base and the motor is an excellent quality. I have had two of these and they never burned out like the Cuisinart Pro that was given to me.

Add a set of scientific cookie cutters and you could be busy for years...

how about using a cookie cutter smaller than the cookie. use it lightly for the imprint only.  you could use a star shape or flower shape.

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