Edible Stained Glass Ornaments

Take your favorite Christmas cookie recipe and turn it into a stained glass ornament! Its really easy to do and the finished cookies can be hung as surprises for kids on Christmas morning. Or, dont make the cookies into ornaments; just make them look like stained glass Christmas trees, wreaths, gingerbread men and more! Although there are many cookie recipes that work well to make stained glass ornaments the best one is an ordinary sugar cookie recipe. However, you can use most any cookie recipe as long as it doesnt contain extra things, like chocolate chips, nuts, marshmallows and such.

Prepare the cookie recipe as you normally would. Roll the dough out to be about an eight-inch thick. It can be helpful to first refrigerate cookie dough, for about 15 or 20 minutes, as the chilled dough holds together better.

Use cookie cutters to make the Christmas shapes you want. Some shapes work better than others. For example, it can be difficult to turn a candy cane-shaped cookie into a stained glass version. Whatever shape you use, cut a place out of the middle, and use this empty area as the stained glass part of the cookie. Take Jolly Ranchers candy and crush it into much smaller pieces. The candy has beautiful shades of red, green, yellow and others, making it perfect for use as stained glass. When the Jolly Ranchers melt they create a look just like stained glass but are much more delicious! For a wreath cookie, cut a simple circle in the middle of a round cookie. For a gingerbread man, cut all the way around, staying an inch or more (depending on size of cookie) away from the edge. Youll cut a gingerbread shape out of the middle and leave a perimeter - an inch or so wide - shaped like a gingerbread man. Do the same for a reindeer shape and others. Roll Jolly Ranchers of one color in a piece of wax paper. Hammer it with a hammer, rolling pin or other implement to break it into smaller pieces. Fill the cutout sections of the cookies with the candy pieces. Fill the holes completely but dont overfill them. If you will be hanging the ornament cookies make a hole in the top area of each one with a straw or similar implement. Preheat oven to 325 degrees and bake the cookies for 6 to 8 minutes. The candies should be completely melted before removing the cookies from the oven. Do not let the cookies brown, though. If they do, you lose the clarity of the stained glass. Allow the cookies to thoroughly cool before hanging or eating them. Theyre scrumptious!