Stained glass cookies are SO EASY to make and so impressive to look at. I love seeing light peek through the centers and yes, you can decorate your tree with them!
Prep Time 20 minutes | Cook Time 10 minutes| Total Time 30 minutes
INGREDIENTS:
For the Cookies:
- 1 cup unsalted butter 226g, room temp
- 1 cup granulated sugar 200g
- 2 eggs
- 4 cups all-purpose flour 480g, sifted
- 1/2 cup cornstarch 65g, sifted
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt 3g
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 5mL
For the Window Pane:
- 1/3 cup Hard candies You can use any one you’d like.
Instructions
- Preheat to 375 degrees F.
- Sift the flour, cornstarch and salt into a large bowl and whisk together.
- In a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar together.
- Add eggs one at a time then the vanilla while mixing on low.
- Scrape the bowl down and mix in the dry mixture.
- Separate dough into two disks. Wrap in plastic and chill for about an hour. I like to roll my dough out a bit between two sheets of plastic wrap at this point so there’s less rolling later on.
- Roll chilled dough to a 1/4 inch thickness.
- Cut out a shape using a medium to large cookie cutter. Cut out the window shape on the inside using a smaller shape.
- Poke a small hole at the top of the cookie. This is for the ornament hook.
- Place cookies on a silpat lined baking sheet.
- Add hard candies to a ziplock bag. Choose a brand and flavor of hard candies that you enjoy.
- Crush up, then add to the inside of the cookies. Distribute evenly.
- Bake for 12 minutes at 375F then allow to cool on baking sheet.
- Add ornament hook if hanging.
Notes
- Measure your flour correctly! Adding too much flour to the recipe is the most common mistake. The best, and easiest way to measure flour is by using a scale. If you don’t have one then fluff your flour with a spoon, sprinkle it into your measuring cup, and use a knife to level it off.
- Try not to get any hard candy on the sugar cookie as it will look messy.
- I used a pin to pop any air bubbles when the cookies were RIGHT out of the oven; this gave the cookies a wonderful unblemished look.
- You really need a silicone baking mat for this. Baking paper MIGHT work in a pinch though.
- Make sure you wait for the cookies to cool before lifting them off the baking sheet, they need to set and firm up.
- Humidity will make the candy centers of these cookies sticky so watch out!