Friday, December 24, 2010

Happy Holidays ..



One day my daughter said, 'Mom, when I grow big i will learn how to cook and bake like you' Oh.. she melted my heart :D - well, since we have a long holiday weekend, I asked her to bake together.. and she really enjoyed the baking process.

And here we go, the one of her favorite holiday cookies, Stained-Glass Sugar Cookies ! Pretty easy to make and bring smile to her face , what a great combination !!

And for all my beloved friends :
May the joy and peace of Christmas be with you all through the Year.
Wishing you a season of blessings from heaven above. Happy Christmas





Stained-Glass Sugar Cookies

Recipe Ingredients
3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp each ground ginger and vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
4 cups all-purpose flour
About 50 assorted colors Life Savers or Jolly Ranchers hard candies, each color crushed separately



Recipe Preparation
1. Beat butter and sugar in a large bowl with mixer on medium speed until pale and fluffy. On low speed beat in next 5 ingredients to combine. Gradually beat in flour until blended.

2. Divide dough in half; shape each into a 1-in.-thick disk. Wrap and refrigerate 30 minutes, or until firm enough to roll.

3. Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets(s) with foil; coat with nonstick spray. Have ready a star cookie cutter.

4. Meanwhile prepare your crush candies . Pick out all the red and blue candies from your bag of Jolly Ranchers Unwrap them and put them in separate Ziploc bags. Using a meat mallet, crush the candies into little, bitty pieces .

5. rolled the dough, cut large star shapes out of it. cut out about six big stars first

6. Using a smaller cookie cutter , remove a star-shape from the center of each large star.

7. Fill the small star-shaped holes with the pieces of the hard candy. It's OK if there are a few gaps. They will fill in when the candy melts.

8. Bake for 8-10 minutes, until the edges of the cookies have just started to brown and the candy in the center has melted and smoothed out.

9. Be sure to allow the cookies to cool and the candy to harden before transferring to a wire rack to cool thoroughly




1 comment:

Kris Ngoei said...

Beautiful stained glass cookies and that shot of your daughter... just gorgeous!!