Help Needed with Using Embossed/imprinted Cookie Cutters

1 cup butter – room temperature 1 cup white granulated sugar 2 large eggs 2 Tbsp vanilla
5 cups all-purpose flour 1 tsp baking powder (optional) 1/4 cup heavy cream 1/2 tsp salt
Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs, vanilla and cream and mix until smooth. Combine flour, baking powder and salt and add to liquid mixture. Mix just until well incorporated. Don’t over mix. Roll out dough to 1/4 inch thickness be- tween two pieces of parchment paper. Refrigerate flattened dough for 1 hour. Preheat oven to 350°. Peel parchment
off of top side. Flip and peel off other parchment sheet. Cut into shapes and place cookies 1 inch apart on parchment lined cookie sheets. Bake 12 to 14 minutes until bottoms and edges are light brown. Cool. Decorate with royal icing. Makes approximately 36 medium size cookies.

This is the recipe I use for my cookies. I've never found a store bought/already made dough that works for embossed cookie cutters. Sorry!

If you really want nicely embossed cookies, make shortbread. Make sure you don't have self-rising flour. But shortbread cookies usually keep exactly the shape you make because they don't rise (the only ingredients are butter, sugar, and flour. They're one of our favorites!) By the way, making the dough thinner will, in fact, help you keep the outline, but you may not get the embossing -- my cookie cutters have the embossing higher than the cutting edge and you need them kind of thick to make the embossing happen. Also, shortbread cookies have a large amount of butter/margarine, so they probably won't stick to the cutter -- but I would also spray the cutter/mold with pam and flour it every couple of cookies.

ETA: Jennifer's right -- store bought dough never works for cookie cutters for me. I have a Wilton cookie pop mold that came with a recipe similar to the one Jennifer posted (maybe the same one). To save time once, I used the store bought dough and it was terrible -- too fluffy and puffed up. I had to throw it out and start over.

In my experience, there is always going to be a bit of distortion with embossed cookie cutters. I don't have any experience with the store bought dough, but I imagine it can't be too much different that what you make yourself.

The distortion will be less if you roll the cookie dough out thinner. Instead of 1/4 of an inch, try 1/8. Just watch them baking, because they will cook faster. Dipping the cutter in flour will help prevent it from sticking. You need to do this for each cookie. Don't over flour though. Dip it and tap off the excess.

I agree with the short bread recipe. but either way here is what I have found with my embossed cookie cutters.
1. Roll the dough THICK.
2. Imprint FIRST, good and deep grooves. almost cutting through the dough - (this helps the indentions stay after the dough cooks and kind of rolls together).
3. Cut the shape AFTER the imprint. When you imprint it displaces the dough and if you cut first, then imprint, it gets funny shaped and pushed around. So by cutting after you imprint, you get a nice outside edge

These are my tricks and my cookies come out really nice and easy to see. ALSO don't underestimate the power of decent decorating to help make the cookie pop.
EDIT: re sticking. I use flour.

I'm not sure about what type of dough to use, but if you flour coat the cookie cutter after a few cut outs that should prevent it from sticking. You can also hold the cookie cutter at an angle maybe 45 degrees and gently tap the bottom of the cookie cutter on the counter to loosen up the cookie. I have also used pam cooking spray when my dough stuck really bad.