It is nearly Christmas, and 'tis the season for making edible gifts. As part of my annual Christmas boxes, I fulfilled a long held ambition this year - to make stained glass window cookies. These are spice cookies with a hole cut in the centre which is filled with crushed hard fruit drops, then baked til the crushed lollies melt to form a "window" in the biscuits. If you want, you can cut a hole in the top of the biscuits so that they can be hung as Christmas decorations.
The recipe for these cookies is by The Australian Women's Weekly, and is as follows:
150 g butter
1/2 cup (110g) firmly packed brown sugar
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
2 cups (300g) self raising flour
1 egg beaten lightly
24 wrapped hard fruit drops (remember them from tuckshop?)
Process the butter, sugar, spices and a pinch of salt in food processor until combined.
Add the flour and pulse until the dough resembles crumbs, then add the egg and process until the dough just comes together.
Divide the dough into half, and shape each half into a disc. Wrap each disc in plastic wrap and chill for at least 30 minutes.
Pre-heat your oven to 180 degrees Celsius, and line 3 baking trays with baking paper.
Crush the wrapped lollies with a rolling pin - or in my case, blitz them in a food processor (they are tough to break!).
Roll the chilled dough between two sheets of baking paper until 5mm thick, then cut out biscuits using cutters of your choice, and cut a shape in the centre of each biscuit in the desired shape of your "window". Place the biscuits on the baking trays, and fill the window in each biscuit with crushed lollies.
Bake the biscuits for about 10 minutes or until the edges start to brown. Allow biscuits to cool on the trays for about 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
