In-studio purchase only
Pre-Made Kiln Cookies
Every piece that goes into a glaze firing needs one underneath it. These are the good ones, already fired, saved out of past loads and sitting in the bins for the nights you do not feel like rolling your own.
$2.25 to $8.00 by size, plus tax
Round bottoms only. Anything that is not round still needs a cookie you make for that shape.
Members only, and we do not ship
These live in bins in the studio and they get picked up in the studio. There is no shipping option on this product and there is no way for us to send you one. If you are not a member of The Clay Hole, this is not something you can buy from us.
If you are a member, everything below is for you.
Why they exist
The cheapest insurance in the building.
A cookie is not a formality. It is a piece of clay whose entire job is to be sacrificed so a kiln shelf is not.
It saves the shelf, and the shelf is expensive
Miss a spot of glaze on the bottom, or have a glaze move more than you expected, and the cookie sticks to your pot instead of your pot sticking to our shelf. A single kiln shelf costs hundreds of dollars, and members are responsible for the ones their work ruins. Four kilns of shelves stay usable because of these.
It is the last chore of a long pottery day
Rolling a slab, trimming it round, sizing it three quarters of an inch wider than the footprint. Fine at seven o'clock. Considerably less fine at ten, when the piece is glazed, the ticket is filled out, and you want to go home. That is the whole reason we sell these.
These are the survivors
We do not make cookies to sell. We save the genuinely good ones that come back out of firings, flat and clean, and put them in the bins. They have been pre-bisque fired or high fired already, depending on the cookie, so they are ready the moment you pick one up.
Using one
Five things, and then you are done.
- 1
Size it to the footprint, not to the pot. The cookie wants to be about three quarters of an inch wider than the part that actually touches the shelf. How wide your piece gets higher up does not matter.
- 2
Wipe the bottom of your piece completely bare. An eighth to a quarter of an inch clear above the foot. An eighth is fine for a very stable glaze. A quarter gives a runny one somewhere to go.
- 3
Set the cookie on the drop-off table and your pot on top of it. Kiln ticket alongside, with your order number written on it.
- 4
Include the cookie in your height. It takes up kiln space, so it goes into the measurement on your ticket along with the piece.
- 5
One firing, and then it is gone. Cookies do not come back to you. We have no way of telling which ones were bought and which were made, so nobody gets theirs returned.
Two things a cookie will not do for you
It will not fit a piece that is not round. Everything in these bins is a circle. If the bottom of your piece is square, oval, footed in some clever way, or just big and strange, you are making a cookie for that shape out of scrap clay.
It will not hold a flux glaze. Anything with flux on the outside goes into the kiln on a glaze catcher instead, at any height, no exceptions. A flat cookie under a running glaze is how a pot ends up permanently attached to it.
And the honest version: you never have to buy one of these. There are barrels of scrap clay in the studio and making your own costs nothing but ten minutes. We sell them because some nights you do not have the ten minutes.
Pick a size
Grab it from the bin, pay for it here.
Sizes are labeled on the kiln cookie bins. Take the one that clears your footprint by about three quarters of an inch all the way around, and add one to your cart for every piece going in.
Buying several sizes? Add one, switch the size, add the next. Prices are per cookie and do not include tax.
Questions
The ones we get asked
Do I have to buy one?
Never. Making your own out of scrap clay is free and always will be. Roll it thin like a chubby tortilla, trim it round with a needle tool, and use a clay the same color as your pot.
Are these already fired?
Yes. Depending on the cookie it has been bisque fired or high fired, so it goes straight under your piece with nothing else to do to it.
Do I get it back?
No. Cookies are a one-time thing, and we have no way of knowing which ones in a load were bought, so we cannot get yours back to you. Glaze catchers are the reusable option.
My piece is not round. What then?
Then you are making one. Everything in the bins is round, and a cookie has to cover the whole footprint with about three quarters of an inch to spare all the way around.
Can a few small pieces share one cookie?
They can, as long as they are roughly the same height and all of them fit on a single six inch cookie with three quarters of an inch to spare on every side. Measure by the tallest piece on the cookie. That is the only time pieces get combined on a firing ticket.
Can you ship one to me?
No. We do not ship anything on this page, to anybody, for any reason. It is an in-studio purchase for members only.
One more time
Members, in the studio. That is the whole rule.
If you found this page from a search and you are not a member, we are glad you are here, but this is not a product you can buy. What you probably want is a membership, and then the cookies are the boring part of a very good deal.