132 Stained Glass Cookies

Christmas is around the corner (only a few days left until Christmas Eve!), and I am way behind with Christmas decorations, baking and gift wrapping. It’s cold (currently minus 7 degrees Celsius) and snowy outside, and yet I find the thought of Christmas in four days, well, crazy. It only hit me tonight, and, quite frankly, I panicked.

As I am trusted (not sure if generously or viciously) by my Mum with all the Christmas baking this year (which even comes with an assistant, my dear sister that is), so that’s Saturday gone. Sunday? Sunday will be for making all the fillings for pierogi, uszka and kapuśniaczki, finishing the cakes, and decorating the Christmas tree, for which (I just realised) I don’t have any of the ornaments I had planned on making. Christmas tree without DIY ornaments this year? Hell no. Stained glass cookies to the rescue! They are fairly quick and straightforward to make, not too expensive either, but the effect is pretty good, I’d say. Christmas tree lights and the “stained glass” work pretty damn well together. See for yourself!

STAINED GLASS COOKIES

Ingredients
150g butter, room temperature
100g light muscovado sugar
1 egg
250g flour
1tsp baking powder
pinch of salt
1 tsp mixed spice
1 pack of hard candies

HOW TO MAKE?
1. Preheat the oven to 180C and line a baking tray with parchment.
2. Using an electric mixer, whisk the butter in a large bowl. When fluffy, add sugar and mix for another minute. Once lightened and creamy add the egg and mix thoroughly.
3. Add previously sifted flour, baking powder, salt, and mixed spice into the mixture and mix with a wooden spoon until combined.
4. Move the dough onto a floured pastry board and knead just until smooth. Don’t overwork it! It should be a quick, gather-it-all-up knead. Roll out the dough to about 0,5 centimetre thick. Cut out biscuit shapes (round in my case) and then cut out holes in the biscuits with another shape (stars in mine). Place ready biscuits on the lined baking tray.
5. Place a boiled hard candy into the hole (cut in half if your hole is smaller than 2.5cm) and bake for 15 minutes, or until golden-brown and the sweet melted.
6. As soon as the cookies are baked (while they’re still warm), use a wooden skewer to make a hole on the top of each biscuit. Be careful not to make the hole too near the edge of the biscuit. Once the melted sweets have hardened, transfer the cookies to a wire rack to cool. When cooled down, thread a piece of string or ribbon through the hole. The biscuits are now ready for the Christmas tree!