STAINED GLASS COOKIES

These beautiful cookies are easy to make and popular with the kids. They work great with almost any Kitchen Collectable cookie cutter, but try the angel, the church, the cross, any of  the Christmas ornaments, or the heart.

Recipe:

Mix margarine, shortening, sugar, honey, eggs and vanilla. Add flour, soda and salt. Add flour and chill the dough overnight. Roll out dough on waxed paper. Cut shapes with Kitchen
Collectable cookie cutters. Then cut out areas for "windows".  Place the cookies on a well-greased or parchment paper lined cookie sheet or cookie sheet covered with parchment
paper.  Bake for 4 to 5 minutes.  Remove from oven, fill the openings with crushed hard candies or a whole life saver. Bake at 350 degrees for 4 to 5 minutes or until candy is melted and cookies are just turning tan around the edges.
Let cookies cool for 5 minutes before removing them from the cookie sheet. Enjoy!

An Alternate version follows:

STAINED-GLASS LEMON COOKIES

Any holiday-motif cookie cutter can be used to make these. If you don't have small cookie cutters (about one inch in diameter) to cut out the centers, use the wide end of a small pastry-bag tip instead. The cookies look striking in a glass canister dressed up with a bright red ribbon.

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature 3/4 cup sugar 1 large egg yolk 2 teaspoons grated lemon peel 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 2 1/4 cups all purpose flour 1/2 teaspoon salt 6 ounces (about) red and/or green hard candies Additional sugar as desired (consider a sugar substitute

Ingredients:

Using electric mixer, beat butter and 3/4 cup sugar in large bowl until well blended. Beat in egg yolk, lemon peel and vanilla extract. Add all purpose flour and salt and beat until mixture begins to clump together. Divide dough into 3 equal pieces. Flatten each piece into disk; wrap each in plastic and refrigerate 2 hours. (Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Soften dough slightly at room temperature before rolling out.)

Finely grind red and/or green hard candies separately in processor. Transfer each color of candy to separate small bowl; cover candies and set aside.

Position 1 rack in center and 1 rack in top third of oven and preheat oven to 375°F. Line 2 large baking sheets with parchment paper. Roll out 1 dough disk on lightly floured surface to 1/4-inch thickness. Using 2 1/2- to 2 3/4-inch-diameter cookie cutter or biscuit cutter, cut out cookies. Using small (about 1 inch in diameter) cookie cutter, make cutouts in center of each cookie.

Transfer cookies to prepared baking sheets. Spoon ground hard candies into cookie cutouts, filling cutouts completely to same thickness as cookies. Sprinkle cookies lightly with additional sugar. Repeat with remaining dough disks, ground hard candies and additional sugar. Reroll dough scraps and cut out additional cookies. Place on baking sheets; fill with hard candies and sprinkle with additional sugar.

Bake cookies until firm and light golden and ground candies look translucent, about 8 minutes. Cool cookies completely on baking sheets. (Can be prepared ahead. Store in airtight container at room temperature up to 1 week or freeze up to 1 month.)