Stained Glass cookies

Stained glass cookies! When I started using parchment paper to bake things on to keep them from sticking I was amazed at how well it worked, and I started to wonder if I could actually make some of the amazing christmas cookies I always see in the baking magazines that look ridiculously complicated. I had always assumed that baking stained glass cookies would be awful, that the candy would stick to whatever it was baked on and it would all shatter when you tried to pry it off. I occasionally wondered if the cookies in the pictures were faked.

These didn't turn out perfectly, but I'm surprised by the quality my results. Many errors and complications more related to human mistake than the recipe got in the way. Though I read in many different places that these are more decorative than edible, I strived for eat-ability, that was probably error 1, error 2 was having my very very energetic little brother help, and error 3 was apparently confusing candy choice. 

So, these are great if, 1 you don't expect them to be easy to eat and perhaps only use them for decorative purposes or quieting loud people with sticky candy, 2 you don't give a 6 year old a hammer and tell him to smash candy, and 3 you use candy that people expect to find in the middle of christmas cookies, peppermint perhaps? 

I started out with this recipe but also drew inspiration from this one  

Recipe:

2 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 egg

1/4 cup heavy cream

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp baking powder

+ 30 ish hard candies

Directions:

1. Beat together the sugars, vanilla, egg, and heavy cream on high for about a minute.
2. Add in the salt, and baking powder and mix it in thoroughly before adding in the flour
3. You can either separate the dough into sections, roll it out 1/4 - 1/8 inch thick and then refridgerate it before taking cookies cutters to it, or roll it into a log, refridgerate it and then cut shapes out of the cookies cut from the log.
4. Either way, refrigerate it for at least two hours before cutting
5. While it is cooling, unwrap the candies and put them in a ziplock bag, wrap the bag in a towel and smash those candies with a rolling pin, or a hammer, or a mallet, or really any blunt object suitable for smashing things
6. After you've allowed the dough to cool, cut out your shapes and fill the holes with the smashed candy.
Preheat your oven to 350° F and bake for 10-12 minutes