Stained Glass Cookies: Sweet Treats That You Can Make In Under An Hour!
Mar 17 '05
The Bottom Line They look awesome, taste great and will make you the belle of the ball!
I’ve mentioned Stained Glass Cookies in some of my reviews and when someone emailed me asking me to give them the recipe I figured I might as well post it to the site so others can take a crack at it. It’s a very easy thing to do and if you have cookie cutters, can crush up candy and cut out a cookie shape, you can make these! It does require a little extra time but the end result is well worth it, imagine biting into a nice crisp cookie then hitting some hard candy [mint, spearmint, peppermint etc] .. tell me that doesn’t get your taste buds going. These are so simple to make and you can use the cut out portions to make mini cookies or just reuse the dough.
What Is A Stained Glass Cookie
I’m sure you’ve seen a stained glass window; lead surrounding different colored pieces of glass. That’s what this cookie is, melted hard tack candy inside a cookie frame. You can make them as simple or as elaborate as you wish and if you don’t have a cookie cutter in the exact shape to cut out a mid section, improvise! You can make these for any season or holiday and they look awesome if you add a popsicle stick to the back of them using some royal icing. When I make these they are usually the first thing to go at parties and people always laugh at me when I tell them how easy they are to make. There’s no limit to what you can do with the cookie once it’s cooled off [or before you bake it] but even if this is the only thing that you do to it, it is still going to look like a piece of art. It still amazes me that broken up piece of candy melt so nicely and look so spectacular … and I’ve been making these for years!
What You Need
1. Hard Tack candy [Lifesavers, candy canes etc]
2. Cookie cutters
3. Chilled cookie dough
4. Parchment paper
5. Rolling pin and plastic bags
The best type of candy for this is anything that is clear and cheap. You don’t need to buy expensive stuff for these types of cookies because it is just going to end up melting inside the cookie cut out. I like to buy the large bags of hard tack candy at wholesale stores but you can make due with a couple of rolls of Lifesavers to start out with, bagged ones are also perfectly fine. You’ll want to separate the colors then place them in plastic bags or wrapped up in plastic wrap. Give it a few good whacks with your rolling pin until the pieces are broken up. You are going for a chunky texture, not a fine grit so don’t work out all your frustrations on the candy. You can also use candy canes if you want a swirl type design to your finished cookie but you may want to play around with other hard tack candy, you might just find one that you really like working with.
This is where the fun starts! Line your cookie sheet with parchment paper, even if you have non-stick pans, parchment paper will keep the candy from sticking to it, make it easier to remove and eliminates the possibility of ruining the pans surface. Take a large cookie cutter and, working with chilled and rolled out dough, start cutting out the larger shapes. Once you have that completed, take a smaller cutter [same shape or different as long as you have at least a half inch of dough from the inner cut to the outer cut] and cut out the middle of the cookie. I like to use nested cutters, these are ones that usually come in a set of four to eight cutters of varying sizes but all the same shape. My favorite is to use the largest heart in my Wilton nested set then use the smallest one to cut out three to four small hearts.
Once you have the small cuts made inside the cookie, transfer it to the parchment lined cookie sheet. Spoon in some of the crushed up candy until the area is full, not brimming over, just full, and bake. I suggest using a clean toothpick to move around the chunks, you don’t want air pockets or bubbles! You will want to keep a close eye on these as they bake because some candies will pop or spit when they heat up. It’s hard to say which ones will and which ones won’t so it’s best to stay near the oven. You’ll want to make sure that you get all the candy inside the cut out, any that end up on the edges will be painfully evident when the baking process starts. This used to happen to me all the time when I would crush the candy up too finely and I would end up with candy dust all over the face of the cookie. I couldn’t see it on the dough but once it hit the heat .. there it was.
You will want to let the cookies cool off completely before you remove them from the sheet and peel off the parchment paper. This means you will want to take them out of the oven about a minute before they are supposed to come out because you can’t move them to a cooling rack. I used to stand there and fan the cookies to get them to cool off and stop the baking process but that was a little too laborious for me so I decided I would just take them out a minute ahead of time and save myself some extra work. The trickiest part is getting the cookies off the parchment paper; lift up a corner and slowly peel it away from the cookie. You’ll want to let them cool off a little more upside down on a cookie sheet. Why upside down? So you don’t get indentation in the candy section if it is still a little warm. After that, you are done and you have some awesome looking cookies!
Helpful Hints
• If you don’t want to make your own dough you can use the stuff that comes in a tube at the grocery store but you will want to get a plain sugar cookie type dough. You can also make larger batches of dough and freeze it but personally I don’t like the taste that frozen dough gives off, especially if you store a lot of ‘smelly’ foods in your freezer.
• You can also use the Stained Glass Cookies as ornaments. To do this you will need to make sure that you create a hole so they can be hung up and if you want to keep them for next year, apply several generous coating of Modge Podge to them so they will be completely sealed. You can also use a recipe that omits the sugar and eggs but make sure people know that these are for decoration only and not to consume.
• For more color you can dust the cookies with colored sugars if you want but do this before you bake them so they will stick to the cookie. Use an alternating color to what you are filling the cut out areas with for the best presentation. You can also use a royal icing on the outer edges of the cookie, there’s no limit to what you can do with these!
The Bottom Line
These cookies are easy to make, look awesome and if you are taking them to a party chances are people will be talking about them and asking you for the recipe. You can play it off and act like it was no big deal to make them or let everyone think you spent hours upon hours making them! You can make a ton of them and put them in a basket as a gift, slap a popsicle stick on the back and have them standing up in styrofoam or just serve them as it. It’s a multi texture treat that as fun to eat as it is to make, a great project for kids and it’s almost goof proof.
As always, thanks for the read!
~^V^~ Freak ~^V^~
© 2005 Freak369
Helpful tools to help you out …
Wilton Metal Heart Cookie Cutter Set
Wilton Cookie Treat Sticks
Wilton Food Writer
Wilton Color Mist
Wilton Ready-to-Decorate Icing
If you want to try a good sugar cookie recipe...
1 1/2 cups sugar
2/3 cup shortening or butter
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 1/4 cups flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
Instead of the 1 ½ cups of sugar you can split it and use half sugar and half brown sugar. If you are going for lighter colored cookies then stick with plain white granulated sugar. Combine the wet ingredients then the dry, mix well then bake at 375 degrees for about seven to eight minutes or until they are ‘done’ according to your own taste and liking.
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