Stained Glass Cookies

Stained Glass Cookies - Rolled sugar cookies cut out and filled with crushed Jolly Rancher candies which melt and create a stained-glass effect.

Ok, what's really supposed to be Day 3 of the 12 Days of Cookies is Day 2...

Or is it the other way around.
Anywho,
We're having a 12 Days of Cookies Party over on the 365 Days of Baking Facebook page and LOTS of people have been sharing LOTS of cookies!!
If you haven't been over to check them out, please do so and say hello to some new Facebook pages and tell them how much you like their cookies!
I've also been pinning them. You can follow me on Pinterest and check out my boards. I have a board for each day of cookies.

Today I give you a recipe that I thought was going to be a bit complicated, but turned out to be rather easy.
YAY for easy!
It's just a simple sugar cookie using two cut-outs, and crushed Jolly Rancher candies (DO NOT use LifeSavers - they are BLECCHY with a capital B in both taste and melting quality).

On the cookie tray, with middles being cut out.

After being in the oven for 5 minutes.

I took the sugar cookie recipe from my Fannie Farmer Cookbook Thirteenth Edition, p. 617; author, Marion Cunningham; publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.; ISBN 0-394-56788-9.


Stained Glass Cookies - makes about 40 cookies (don't have an exact count as I accidentally threw out the paper I'd written it on.

Ingredients
1/4 pound of butter (1 stick), room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon cream
1 1/2 cups flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Red and Green Jolly Rancher Candy, 10-15 of each, crushed - (I used put them in two plastic bags and crushed them with a mallet)

Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, F.
Prepare two baking sheet by lining them with parchment paper.
Cream the butter, then gradually add the sugar, beating until light.
Add the egg, vanilla and cream. Beat throughly.
In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder.
Add to the butter/sugar mixture and blend well.
Prepare a clean flat surface by covering it with flour, enough so that the dough will not stick to the surface.
Using a floured rolling pin, roll dough to 1/4 -inch thick.
Using the larger cookie cutter, cut shapes into the dough.
Transfer the cut-outs to a prepared cookie sheet.
Center the smaller cookie cutter in to the larger cut-out and gently remove.
Bake cookies for 5 minutes, until slightly set.
Remove tray from oven and with a small spoon or small utensil sprinkle crushed Jolly Rancher candy into the center of each cookie.
Return tray to oven and bake for 5-7 minutes more, until candy has melted and cookies are golden.
Allow to cool on baking sheet for about 5 minutes before setting on wire rack to cool completely.

Ok, so with the Lifesavers, yeah, no.
They tasted horrible and melted even worse. See?

Lifesavers are on the right, Jolly Ranchers on the left. Even though it's a blurry picture, you can still see the difference.
That pink spot in the Jolly Rancher cookie is because I combined the watermelon and cherry candies.

Filled with crushed candies and ready to go back into the oven.

Upon removal from the oven.

Obviously, with the smaller cut-outs of the dough, I re-rolled those to make more cookies and kept doing that until I was out of dough.

Also, I only baked one tray at a time, as it was a bit time consuming filling the centers and my back started to hurt. haha
When sprinkling the candy into the center, you want to get as little as possible on the cookie itself because it doesn't "go away" as I somehow thought it might. (See the above picture.) Where the heck did I think it would disappear to anyway? So, some were as close to perfect as I could get while others, you could tell Miss Lynne was getting tired from filling cookies with crushed candy.

I rate everything I make on a scale of 1-4 and these Stained Glass Cookies earned 4 rolling pins!
They were easy, fun and tasty to eat.
I made them for Thanksgiving and the kids LOVED them (so did the adults)!!
They'll be a hit on that cookie tray or dessert table.

If you like these cookies, you might like

Checkerboard Cookies

Chocolate Covered Cherry Thumbprints

Laura Bush's Cowboy Cookies

I give you BIG baking hugs and muffins!!