Stained Glass Cookies are the most magical of Christmas treats. Melted boiled sweets create a coloured glass “window” in the cookie, creating a mesmerising effect.
These sweet cookies make a beautiful gift and they’re easier than you might think to make. So gather up your favourite festive cookie cutters and get ready to unleash your creativity.
Boiled sweets: the magic ingredient
The coloured glass windows in these cookies are created with boiled sweets.
Major supermarkets should have these old-fashioned lollies. I picked up a bag from my local Woolworths.
You sort the sweets by colour, pop them in a sandwich bag and then crush them. Miss 8 had brilliant fun using a rolling pin to make some noise and smash up these sweets.
You then set these aside until you’ve prepared the cookie dough, chilled it, rolled it out, cut out the cookies and part baked them. The crushed sweets are sprinkled into the cutouts you’ve made in the cookies.
You then return the cookies to the oven to continue to bake, with the crushed sweets melting and creating the stained glass effect.
Magic!
Cookie cutters and creativity
Another fun part of this recipe is that you can get creative with your cookie cutters.
You’ll need medium sized cutters for the cookies and smaller shapes for the cutouts.
Here, I used bells, stars and Christmas trees.
Tips for making perfect Stained Glass Christmas Cookies
This recipe is more straightforward than you may imagine. Be sure, though, to read through the instructions below carefully.
And these final tips may also help you create these wondrous Christmas treats without to much fuss:
- Be aware that the smaller the cutout in the cookies, the more fiddly it is to fill with the crushed sweets.
- Take care filling the cutouts as sweets spilt on the cookie will look a little messy (though they’ll still taste great!)
- If the dough feels too sticky and is hard to work with, add more flour to your workbench as you’re kneading it and rolling it out.
- Make sure your butter and egg are at room temperature before you start.
Stained Glass Cookies
Equipment
- Medium and small cookie cutters.
Ingredients
- 225 grams butter
- 3/4 cup caster sugar (160 grams)
- 1 egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 cups plain flour (all-purpose flour)
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon custard powder
- 100 grams boiled lollies
- extra flour (for kneading and rolling dough)
Instructions
- Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees celsius, fan-forced.
- Line baking trays with baking paper, greasing the corners first to prevent paper slipping.
- Cream butter and sugar on med-high in a stand mixer.
- Add egg and vanilla and beat again for a couple of minutes.
- Fold in sifted flour, baking powder and custard powder.
- Flour the kitchen bench. Separate dough into two parts and knead each until smooth.
- Wrap dough in baking paper and place into the fridge for 15-30 minutes.
- Separate the boiled lollies by colour. Place each colour bundle into a separate plastic bag and crush well using a rolling pin.
- Once chilled, roll out pastry to a thickness of about 3mm making sure the bench you're working on is well floured.
- Cut out cookies using medium cookie cutters. Cut out smaller shapes from the cookies using smaller cookie cutters. Use a spatula to transfer the cookies to the baking tray.
- Bake for 5 minutes and then remove from oven. Carefully fill each small cutout section with the crushed boiled lollies. Return to the oven and bake for a further 5-7 minutes or until lollies have melted.
- Allow to cool on trays for 10 minutes before removing cookies and placing on a cooling rack.
