Stained Glass Christmas Cookies - 11/30

I(Sara) is self confessed Martha Stewart lover.  I have her Cookies and Cupcakes Books.  Since I received the Cookie one, I fell in love with the Stained Glass Cookies.

What is best about this is that you can use any sugar cookie recipe, but if you want here is hers.  Just use your favorite cookie cutters and cut out a window for the crushed candies to melt in while being baked. 

We used a square cookie cutter that we had from our Valentine's Day Cookies and some smaller Christmas cookie cutters that fit inside.  We had a stocking, a tree and two slightly different stars.

We used Jolly Ranchers to break up.  They melt smoothly and easily. We knew this from our childhood days of melting the Jolly Rancher sticks and wrapping them around a blow pop. Good stuff! We had cherry for red, blue raspberry for blue, and apple for green.
Our Dad said the red would have been better if it were cinnamon candy. We agreed then he put one red speck of candy at the top of the green Christmas tree. Guess we should have had yellow too...

 

In our book it said to only put the candies in the middle of the space but it works much better if you fill up the whole section.  That way it spreads out evenly and you don't have to fight the candy to get it spread out.

They came out really cute and tasty too. The candy was just thin enough to be able to bite into without a struggle. Perfect!

Lessons learned:  Sugar cookies are always good and they go well with the fruity flavors of Jolly Ranchers.  Will definitely have to apply the window effect to our gingerbread challenge.