Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Stained Glass Window Cookies



It is nearly Christmas, and 'tis the season for making edible gifts.  As part of my annual Christmas boxes, I fulfilled a long held ambition this year - to make stained glass window cookies.  These are spice cookies with a hole cut in the centre which is filled with crushed hard fruit drops, then baked til the crushed lollies melt to form a "window" in the biscuits.  If you want, you can cut a hole in the top of the biscuits so that they can be hung as Christmas decorations.

The recipe for these cookies is by The Australian Women's Weekly, and is as follows:

150 g butter
1/2 cup (110g) firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
2 cups (300g) self raising flour
1 egg beaten lightly
24 wrapped hard fruit drops (remember them from tuckshop?)


Process the butter, sugar, spices and a pinch of salt in food processor until combined.

Add the flour and pulse until the dough resembles crumbs, then add the egg and process until the dough just comes together.

Divide the dough into half, and shape each half into a disc. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.

Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and line 3 baking trays with baking paper.

Crush the wrapped lollies with a rolling pin - or in my case, blitz them in a food processor (they are tough to break!).


Roll the chilled dough between two sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick, then cut out biscuits using cutters of your choice, and cut a shape in the centre of each biscuit in the desired shape of your "window".  Place the biscuits on the baking trays, and fill the window in each biscuit with crushed lollies.

Bake the biscuits for about 10 minutes or until the edges start to brown. Allow biscuits to cool on the trays for about 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.

12 comments:

cocoa and coconut said...

What a lovely idea! They really do look like stained glass because of the crushed lolly. Love your cutters!

Lorraine @ Not Quite Nigella said...

I used to think that these stained glass cookies were magic-I think I still do! :P

Gloria Baker said...

what lovely look these biscuits Cake Law:)

Lauren Hairston said...

Oooh I love spice cookies. Here the typical candy to use in a stained-glass cookie is a Jolly Rancher or a Lifesaver, but I've never tried it with a spice cookie--just a plain old sugar cookie. We used to make these when I was a kid and my favorite flavors were the apple Jolly Ranchers and the cherry and pineapple Lifesavers. Haven't had either of those candies in years!

Anonymous said...

What a fun idea! Can't wait to try my hand at these.

natalia said...

Ciao ! I always loved these cookies but never made them, I'll bake them durun the holidays with the kids !

Brenda said...

I've been wanting to do these every year for as long as I can remember.
Yours look wonderful!

Daisy@Nevertoosweet said...

I dun think i've had these cookies before but can't wait to try and make them and get to use my sugar thermometer :)

Johanna GGG said...

I'd love to make these one day - though I was curious that you said they have hard lollies in them - I was just thinking of the old myer biscuits counter recently and the bikkies they did with the chewy centres that were a bit like stained glass windows but maybe not as see through :-)

Have a lovely christmas, cakelaw!

Anonymous said...

Those look beautiful!

Elaine said...

I have always wanted to make stained glass window cookies and linzer cookies. These look so lovely! I really like your angel cutter.

Lucas said...

When I was a kid I used to look at the cookie decorations on the tree and marvel at the idea that someone would waste a cookie. I like the hard candy idea, an may try it with some spitzbub'n.