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Gorgeous Stained Glass Cross Cookies

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  • Author: Wendy Hilton
  • Prep Time: 35 minutes
  • Cook Time: 7-9 minutes
  • Total Time: Approx: 45 minutes

Description

These gorgeous stained glass cross cookies are the perfect treat to take to church or family gatherings throughout the Easter season! The stained glass feature makes them look like works of art, but they are pretty simple. I hope you enjoy making (and eating) them!


Ingredients

Scale
  • 3 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 (2 sticks) cup butter, softened
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • ½ teaspoon almond extract
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • Powdered sugar or flour, for rolling
  • Jolly Rancher hard candies (approximately one candy per cookie)

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degree. Prepare your baking sheet by lining it with parchment paper.
  2. Whisk together your dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, and salt. Set these aside.
  3. In a mixing bowl, blend the butter and sugar until creamy and light. Add egg, almond extract, and vanilla extract. Mix well. Slowly add dry ingredients and mix until combined. Dough may be a little crumbly.
  4. Turn out the dough onto a surfaced sprinkled with powdered sugar or flour. Press into a ball and then roll out to ¼ inch thickness. Use cookie cutters to create shapes. Carefully lift shaped cookies to the baking sheet. Using a flat spatula is recommended to help the cookies maintain their shape.
  5. Separate Jolly Rancher hard candies by color (I used blue for the cookies pictured). Place like-colored candies into quart-sized freezer bags. Next, place the quart-sized bag into a larger gallon-sized freezer bag. Sandwich the gallon-sized freezer bag between two towels and beat candies with the flat side of a meat mallet until crushed. Candy will pierce BOTH bags, so be prepared!
  6. Scoop candy pieces into the cut opening of each cookie. The crushed candy should fill most of the hole and mound a little on top. Depending on the size of your opening, you will use the equivalent of approximately 1 candy for each cookie.
  7. Bake cookies for 7 to 9 minutes. Do not brown the cookies. Allow cookies to cool for at least 20 minutes on the baking sheet before carefully removing to a cooling rack.
  8. Store in an airtight container between layers of parchment paper to keep the candy from attaching to the candy in other cookies.

Notes

Do not crush the Jolly Rancher candies prior to using as they will adhere to one another and become a hardened mass of candy.

Also, if the dough is rolled too thin, keeping these cookies intact while moving them to a baking sheet will be very difficult. Using a flat cookie spatula will help, but make sure the cookie dough is at least ¼ inch. Thicker cookies will require more crushed candy.

A basting brush can help keep the tiny pieces of candy inside the cookie opening.

Once cookies have cooled, serve as is or decorate with simple icing and sprinkles.