My boys love it when I give their dipping sauces a little personality. The best part is that it's very easy to do and takes only seconds to do.

The trick is to use a mini cookie cutter. A toothpick, chopstick, or the tip of a butter knife will do.

Step 1

Decide on how you want to arrange your food first, especially if you're trying to go for a theme. Then place the cookie cutter on your plate.

Step 2

Use one hand to hold the cutter in place and the other to squeeze in the sauce. Bottles with easy squeeze lids help, but again a butter knife will work if you need to scoop the sauce out of a jar. Make sure that it's a thicker sauce, as it might not hold its shape if it's a thin runny relish for example.

Step 3

Grab a toothpick and move the sauce all around. If you're holding the cutter firmly you can even bang up against the edges. I like to move in small circles to help create a flat surface and do this pretty quickly.

Step 4

Remove the cutter by lifting straight up in one motion. If you wiggle around too much it might ruin your shape. So far I haven't really had that problem though. If there's any mistakes you can always take the toothpick and adjust it a little bit.

If I royally screw up, I'll just take a paper towel and wipe it away, or rinse off the plate real quick. It takes me only so many seconds for each shape,

Fun Ideas and Tips

• Make it sweet! Use pudding, greek yogurt, or Nutella.

• Put it on top top of a sandwich or hamburger, set the top piece of bread on the side for them to place.

• Mix condiments together. ex. Ketchup and mayonnaise for pink.

• Keep it simple, don't spend forever on it. Less is more here, you're going to a fun element that's supposed to be easy to do.

• Use two toothpicks to apply sauce on top of another sauce (like I did for the mouth and eyes on the bear)

• Wipe the cutter between uses for a cleaner approach.

• Prep the sauces on the plates before adding other foods. Much easier!

Always,