Stained Glass Cookies

These were such good fun to make. We spend a whole day making different types of cookies and decorating them. Not for us to eat ourselves (we'd be the size of a house by now...) but to give as gifts and to decorate our home. It kept my 5 year old fully occupied and she really enjoyed the kneading of the dough, the rolling out, sifting flour, cutting out shapes, crushing the boiled sweets with a mallet (she liked that a little too much!) and all in all it was a great success. I'll be making these again next year!




Stained glass cookies

Ingredients
1 cup / 8oz sugar
2 sticks / 8oz butter
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups /12oz plain flour (all-purpose flour)
Assorted brightly coloured boiled sweets (hard candy)
An array of different shaped cookie cutters - some small enough to fit into the large ones leaving a good margin.

Directions

Preheat oven to 180c / 350 F.

Cream the sugar and butter until smooth. Add the egg and the vanilla extract. Mix in the flour. Mould the dough into a ball, then wrap in up wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

Remove from the refrigerator and cut dough into 1/3. Roll out dough, 1 piece at a time to a 3/16-inch thickness. Then the fun part starts. Cut out some big cookie shapes then fit smaller shapes inside. You can be as creative as you like!! Well as creative as the array of cookie cutters you have will let you be.

Place the boiled sweets, separated by colour, into small plastic bags. Then smash them mercilessly with something mallet like. Then fill each hole you have made in each cookie with a colour of crushed sweets. we even got creative using different shades in the same cokie which worked pretty well. Don't be tempted to out too much in or it just spills over the edge and spoils the effect somewhat,

If you want to use them as decorations you can hang them from your tree or in a window. Don't forget to make a small hole in the top of each cookie with something like a chopstick so you will be able to thread a ribbon through when it is cooked.

Pop them in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes or until lightly golden brown, and the candy has melted.