Now that you've finished your Christmas baking

I'm going to show you something that will send you out to the store for the supplies to make just one more batch of cookies.

These are fun, lovely and, most importantly, yummerrific!

I'm talking about stained glass window cookies.

(The "windows" are less opaque than they appear in my pictures. Holding them up to light is cool, too!)

I've read the instructions in my cookbook year after year, but have never taken that extra step to make them because I always forget to purchase the hard candies that make the stained glass centers in these cookies.

I love the flavour of these. The dough is just your basic sugar cookie cut-out dough, which I've always thought was bland. The candies give the flavour a nice little kick.

I used Lifesavers and I crushed them and mixed the colours in each "window." Next year, I'll do solid colours and skip crushing them. I hear Jolly Rancher candies work just as well as Lifesavers.

I purchased a mini star cutter and used my son's duckie playdough cutter or cut out shapes from each cookie with a knife. A small cutter is the easiest method.

Basic Sugar Cookie Cutouts recipe

1/2 c butter, softened
3/4 c granulated sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1 T milk
1 tsp vanilla
2 c all-purpose flour

Preheat oven to 375F.

First beat the butter with an electric mixer on medium for 30 seconds. Add the sugar, baking powder, and salt. Beat until combined, scraping sides of bowl occasionally. Beat in egg, milk and vanilla until combined. Beat in as much of the flour as you can with the mixer (I use my dough hooks and my cheap little hand mixer on medium, using turbo when the mixer starts to struggle and I can do the whole batch with it.) Stir in any remaining flour. (Use your hands. Seriously. Just make sure they and your nails are clean.) Divide the dough in half, cover and chill it for 30 minutes or until it's easy to handle.

Next, on a lightly floured surface, roll half the dough at a time until 1/8" thick. Cut out dough into desired shapes. Then cut smaller shapes out of the cookie centers. Finely crush 3 ounces hard candy if mixing colours. If you're not going to mix colours, don't bother crushing them. Fill each center with some of the candy right to the top edges of the cookies. You can top cookies with coloured sugars if you would like. Bake on a foil lined cookie sheet 7-8 minutes or until edges are firm and bottoms are very lightly browned.* Allow to cool on the foil completely before removing with a spatula. You don't need to spray the foil, but you may. Store tightly covered.


*For non stained glass sugar cookies, place cutouts on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for the same time/temp. Remove from oven and move cookies to a wire rack to cool.

Decorate as you like.