Tom Saaristo Stained Glass Cookies

http://tomsaaristo.com

Stained Glass Cookies

These are a bit more complicated to make than most cookies, but the effort will be well worth your time when you see how beautiful they are, and how impressed young and old alike will be when they set their eyes on them.

Ingredients
Cookies:
1/2 cup vegetable shortening
1/2 cup [1 stick] butter
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
4 ounces [half an 8-ounce package] cream cheese, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 egg
4 cups flour
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Candy Centers:
2/3 cup hard candy, finely crushed [your favorite flavor LifeSaver candy or similar candy]

Method
For Cookies: In a large bowl, cream the shortening, butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Mix in the softened cream cheese, vanilla and egg, and beat well.

In a medium-sized bowl, sift together the flour, ginger, nutmeg, baking soda and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture, beating until well-combined. Cover the dough and refrigerate overnight, to firm it up.

Next day, remove the dough from the refrigerator and divide it into quarters. Keeping the remaining pieces refrigerated until they're needed, roll out each piece of dough on a lightly floured work surface to a thickness of 1/8-inch. Use a 3 1/2- to 4-inch round cookie cutter to cut the dough, and immediately transfer the cookies to greased parchment- or greased foil-lined baking sheets, leaving about 1 inch between them. Use a smaller [1-inch or so] cutter, in the shape of a heart, star, diamond or what-have-you, to cut out the centers of the cookies. If the dough isn't cold enough, refrigerate the sheets and cut out the centers when the dough is a bit easier to work with. Refrigerate the scraps and re-roll them with the remaining portions of dough, cutting out cookies till all the dough is gone.

Fill each cookie center with crushed candy; you'll need about 1/2 teaspoon per cookie [more or less,depending on the size of the hole you’ve cut]. Spread the candy in a thin, even layer. Don’t mix too many candy colors, or the centers may turn a muddy brown; however, you may mix complementary colors — red and yellow, for example, to obtain orange. If you intend to hang the cookies on your tree, use a drinking straw to poke a hole in the top of each cookie, for the ribbon or hanger.

Preheat your oven to 375° and bake the cookies for 6 to 7 minutes, or until they're just firm, but still somewhat pale and just lightly browned around the outer edges. Let them cool on the baking sheets. Loosen the cookies carefully, and peel them off the parchment or foil. If they’re for consumption [rather than decoration], store them airtight, in a cool, dry place, packed in a single layer.

When using them as decorations, they can be kept uncovered at least 1 month without incident. Just don’t store them near a heat source!