Candy Cane Stained Glass Window Cut-Out Cookies

Directions

• To make the cookie dough, start by creaming together the butter and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer, fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix it up until it’s light and fluffy.
• Add the eggs and vanilla and mix on medium speed until combined and smooth.
• In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
• Add the dry ingredients to the mixer, one large spoonful at a time, until it’s all combined and your dough has formed.
• Remove the dough from the mixer, form it into a ball, flatten it into a disc, wrap it tightly, and refrigerate it for an hour or overnight. The dough needs to chill and will be ready to work with in an hour, but if you want to leave it in the fridge until the next day, that’s ok too.
• Once the dough has chilled, flour a work surface, your hands, and a rolling pin. Roll the dough out to 1/4 inch thick.
• For these cookies, you need some larger cutters and some smaller cutters that can take a cut-out from the middle of the cookie, but won’t go too close to the edges. Starting with the larger cutters, cut as many cookies as you can from the dough.
• Remove the excess dough from around the cookies, form it into a ball and put it into the fridge while you finish this first batch.
• Using your smaller cutter or cutters, punch out shapes in the centers of all of your cookies.
• Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F, place a rack in the center, and line a flat rimmed baking sheet with parchment paper. The baking sheet needs to be flat and not have ridges because the crushed candy canes will melt and you want there to be a good seal where the cookie meets the lined baking sheet to prevent the liquid peppermint form leaking out while baking,
• These cookies don’t spread much, but they need some space in between for air flow. Arrange the cookies (including the cut-outs) on a flat baking sheet lined with parchment. You will make these in several batches, so fit what you can and save the rest for the next batch. You need to use parchment or a silpat or else the candy cane pieces will stick when they melt and you won’t be able to remove the cookies from the baking sheet without breaking them.
• Fill each cookie cut-out about 3/4 of the way full with crushed candy cane pieces. You don’t want to overfill them because the pieces will melt and they do bubble up a little but while in the oven. You want just enough to form a thin layer to cover the cookie cut-out.
• Bake the cookies in the preheated oven for 13-15 minutes, until the crushed candy cane centers have melted. When you remove the cookies from the oven, do not move them until the candy cane centers have cooled completely. Once fully cooled and set, you can carefully peel the cookies from the parchment paper without breaking them. These cookies will have a crunchier texture than typical cut-out cookies because they need to bake long enough for the candy canes to melt completely.

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• While the first batch is baking, get your dough from the fridge, roll it out to 1/4 inch thick, cut your cookies, fill with crushed candy cane pieces, and repeat the process until you have used up all of your dough. If you prefer to, you can have two sheets of cookies baking at one time, with your oven shelves spaced apart. My preference is one sheet at a time so I can keep a close eye on them.

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• To decorate these cookies, I like to dust the cookies that have a peppermint center with a little bit of powdered sugar. I use a small sieve to spread the powdered sugar over the cookies.
• For the smaller cookies that don’t have a cut-out, I make a simple icing with a red and white swirl and dip the tops of the small cut-out cookies into the icing. To make the icing, whisk together the powdered sugar, milk, and peppermint extract. If you don’t have peppermint extract, that’s ok! You can use vanilla extract instead. If your powdered sugar is on the older side and looks a little bit clumpy when you take it from the bag, you should sift it before mixing the icing to avoid any lumps. When mixing your icing, you can add more milk if you feel that it needs to be thinned out, or more powdered sugar if you feel that it needs to be thicker. I like icing that is thin enough to drip off the whisk when I lift it from the bowl. To create the swirl effect, I add the tiniest drop of red food coloring to the center of my bowl of icing and then I take a toothpick and lightly swirl it out a little. My preference is to not have a mixed pink icing, but rather, have areas of white and light red that resemble the peppermint swirl in the centers of my larger cookies. As you dip your cookies, you will notice that the red and white will be mixing more every time. This is normal! I love how the end result was uniquely iced cookies that were all different. Some with more noticeable swirls and some with very subtle swirls. The icing doesn’t take too long to set. I just give the cookies a little bit of time before moving them so that I don’t smudge them up. You will most likely have extra icing. You can dip some of your candy cane cookies into the icing too if you want to, just don’t dip the peppermint swirl centers!

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• If you’re serving your cookies right away, you can arrange them on a board or tray and show off your beautiful work! These will last for several days in an air-tight container on the counter.

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