Stained Glass Cookies -- How Do You Crunch/break Up Candy?

Baking By cindy58 Updated 1 Nov 2009 , 5:43pm by mirda6275

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cindy58 Posted 28 Oct 2009 , 3:56pm
post #1 of 15

Hi everyone -- last year I made stained glass cookies with the William Sonoma cutters with some young nieces. Does anyone have a good technique for breaking up the life savers / jolly rancher candies? Or know of something better to use to fill in the openings in the cookies?

Thanks for your help / suggestions!

14 replies
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KHalstead Posted 28 Oct 2009 , 4:31pm
post #2 of 15

you can use a food processor (gets it to a nice powder) or else what I do is just stick them in a ziploc bag, put a kitchen towel on top and hit with a hammer or the back of a heavy skillet. If you're doing multiple colors for a real stained glass look, I find it works better to leave the chunks a little larger (so you can adjust where you want the colors to be) but if you're doing all one color, you can pulverise them and it doesn't matter.

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indydebi Posted 28 Oct 2009 , 6:35pm
post #3 of 15

ziplok bag + hammer

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MichelleM77 Posted 28 Oct 2009 , 7:56pm
post #4 of 15

Question about these cookies.......isn't the candy part hard to eat? I know how hard it is to eat Jolly Rancher's (you know, it's kinda sticky) and can't imagine a cookie like that. Sorry if this is a dumb question, I've never had a stained glass cookie before.

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KHalstead Posted 28 Oct 2009 , 8:06pm
post #5 of 15

They're not that hard to eat because the stained glass part winds up being so thin, not thick like a whole lifesaver or jolly rancher.

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MichelleM77 Posted 28 Oct 2009 , 8:39pm
post #6 of 15

okay gotcha. thanks!

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wespam Posted 29 Oct 2009 , 12:03pm
post #7 of 15

I tried these this past weekend and they turned out awful. The smashed jolly ranchers that I used seemed to just bake away and flow into the cookies. What tips can you give me that have been successful with these cookies? They are so beautiful and I would love to be able to make them. Pam from Bama

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KHalstead Posted 29 Oct 2009 , 12:58pm
post #8 of 15

you probably need to add more candy than you added.. you should pretty much cover the entire cutout of the cookie with crushed candy.

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cindy58 Posted 29 Oct 2009 , 1:37pm
post #9 of 15

When we did it with the kids they were kind of messy about it (but they liked them a lot) -- if specks of candy land on the cookie part they will melt into the dough.

I was really hoping there was an easier way to make them.

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kileyscakes Posted 29 Oct 2009 , 2:52pm
post #10 of 15

here is a link to what sweetopia just posted on her blog it shows how she did hers

http://www.sweetopia.net/
hope this helps

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cinderspritzer Posted 29 Oct 2009 , 6:06pm
post #11 of 15

Another good way to make them is to bake the cookies a little, then add the candies toward the end. Sugar can burn if it's in the oven too long.

If I have an 8 minute bake time, I bake for 6 minutes, then add the candy, then bake the remaining 2 minutes. The cookie part is the same as usual and the candy has enough time to melt without burning. icon_smile.gif

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indydebi Posted 29 Oct 2009 , 6:38pm
post #12 of 15

For anyone reading this thread and has never made these cookies before.....

1) let them cool completely before trying to pick them up. Yeah, I *DID* find this one out the hard way! The candy needs to cool so it can re-harden, otherwise it's a gooey mess, and pulls away from the cookie. Which is why you need to ......

2) Bake them on parchment or on a sheet of alum foil for easier removal. You can pick up the whole sheet of parchment or foil and set it on a cooling rack so you can reuse the pan for the next batch.

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wespam Posted 31 Oct 2009 , 11:51am
post #13 of 15

Thank you cinderspritzer, I tried them yesterday as you suggested and they came out perfect. Can't wait to bake some more today, Pam from Bama

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sjlilley Posted 1 Nov 2009 , 5:21pm
post #14 of 15

Does any one know if you can use just colored sugar in place of the crushed candy?

I thought it would be easier to use and comes it lots of colors.

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mirda6275 Posted 1 Nov 2009 , 5:43pm
post #15 of 15

I know you can't use candy sugar as in the large 'sprinkles', they didn't melt when I tried them last year. I used crushed peppermint candies for a white/pink look. If you scrap book or make embossed cards you can use the heat gun to melt the candy in the opening after baking the cookies. That's what I did when the candy sugar stuff didn't melt, but had a bunch of cooked snowflake cookies with empty cutouts.

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