I have seen many pins on Pinterest highlighting Stained Glass Cookies. I have never tasted a stained glass cookie, let alone made them, but really wanted to see if they were as simple as the instructions imply. Like most people, I have a basic list of recipes that I make every Christmas, but often add one or two new ones to the mix. In reading over several of the recipes, I noticed that the cookie itself seemed to be a pretty basic sugar cookie type of recipe. I have used the same Brown Sugar Cookie recipe for years and seldom try others, because these are so yummy. Of course, the finished cookie is slightly brown (darker) than a standard sugar cookie. I decided to use my own Brown Sugar Cookie recipe and then add the “stained glass” to it.

Brown Sugar Cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup of butter
1 cup of  brown sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla
1 egg
2 1/2 cups of flour
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda

Method:

Preheat the over to 360 degrees. Cover and refrigerate for 1 to 2 hours, so that the dough is easier to work with. Flour your counter top and roll out dough. Press with a cookie cutter. Bake for 6 minutes.

Tips:

When rolling cookies, I use two sheets of parchment paper and stick the dough between them. I then roll out the dough by rolling on top of the top sheet. This creates a beautiful smooth texture and prevents the dough from sticking to the rolling-pin (if the dough seems to be super sticky, you may need to add a bit of flour or corn starch to the parchment paper to prevent it from sticking to the paper, but this is generally not necessary). Peel off the top layer and proceed to cut the cookies. I also find that it is super easy to remove the cut cookie from the parchment paper and transfer it to the cookie sheet. This avoids that mushy mess you get when you try to remove the cut cookie directly from the counter.

Sometimes I even roll my dough directly onto my stone. Place a layer of parchment paper over top and roll out the dough to cover the entire sheet or stone.  Cut the cookies so that you are leaving ample space between for baking. Once cut, peel off the extra dough from around the pieces and your cookies are on the tray and ready to go directly into the oven with no need to transfer them!

Stained Glass Cookies:

To make the stained glass cookies, simply use another cookie cutter (something small) to cut out the center of your cookie. (I was thinking that the base of a decorating tip would work well, but I didn’t think of it until after I had started mine, so I stuck with what I had started with).  Set the cut-out cookies (with holes in the middle) onto a foil lined baking sheet. Fill each hole with a mound of broken hard candies. I used Jolly Ranchers. I also tried one with a broken candy cane, but didn’t really like the look. Follow the baking instructions for the cookie recipe and let cool completely on the tray before attempting to remove them. Decorate as desired. I piped on some left over Royal Icing I had on hand from the gingerbread houses we made at youth group on Friday night. I found one star cookie in Google images that I really liked. I used it for my basic plan and then just got creative and did my own thing. A little whimsical and a whole lot of fun!

Star: The stars that are used to decorate trees, cut into cookies or placed on wreaths are symbolic of the star that guided the Wise Men to where Jesus was born in Bethlehem.

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