A Beautiful Easter Cookie ~ Stained Glass Sugar Cookie Recipe -

Easter is such a welcoming time every year because I’m so ready for spring after the long winter here in the Chicago area! The flowers, the pretty pastel colors, and especially focusing on the reason for Easter (Resurrection Day)– I love it all!

I am so excited to share a really fun recipe with you that is perfect for Easter and springtime: Stained Glass Easter Egg Sugar Cookie Recipe. Feel free to use different shapes such as bunnies, lambs, and chicks. Have a lot of fun with these cookies!

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Stained Glass Easter Egg Sugar Cookie Recipe

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1 (2 sticks) cup butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1 egg
½ teaspoon almond extract
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Powdered sugar or flour, for rolling
Jolly Rancher hard candies, approximately one candy per cookie (1 pound bulk here)
Green frosting (mix green food coloring with melted Pillsbury Creamy Supreme Frosting, Vanilla Flavor)
Green candy sprinkles (such as these)
Candy flowers for baking (such as these or these or these)

Instructions for Stained Glass Easter Egg Sugar Cookie Recipe

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper.
Whisk together dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, blend the butter and sugar until creamy and light. Add egg, almond extract, and vanilla extract. Mix well. Slowly add dry ingredients and mix until combined. Dough may be a little crumbly.

Turn out the dough onto a surface sprinkled with powdered sugar or flour. Press into a ball and then roll out to ¼ inch thickness. Use cookie cutters to create shapes. Cut out small holes or other shapes in the cookies. Carefully lift shaped cookies to the baking sheet. Using a flat spatula is recommended to help the cookies maintain their shape.

Separate Jolly Rancher hard candies by color and place inside a quart-sized freezer bag. Place all bags into a larger gallon-sized freezer bag. Sandwich the gallon-sized freezer bag between two towels and beat candies with the flat side of a meat mallet until crushed. Candy will pierce BOTH bags so be prepared.

Scoop candy pieces into the cut opening of each cookie. The crushed candy should fill most of the hole and mound a little on top. Depending on the size of your opening, you will use the equivalent of approximately 1 candy for each cookie.

Bake cookies for 7 to 9 minutes. Do not brown the cookies. Allow cookies to cool for at least 20 minutes on the baking sheet before carefully removing to a cooling rack.
After cookies are cool, dip the bottoms in green frosting: Remove the lid of the Pillsbury frosting can and the metal seal. Microwave on high for 30 seconds. Stir and repeat as necessary until the frosting is a pourable consistency. Mix in green food coloring until your desired color is achieved. Dip each cookie.

Then, dip the cookies in green sprinkles (jimmies), for the “grass.”

Using frosting as “glue,” add some flower candies.

Allow the frosting to dry, and your cookies are done! Store in an airtight container between layers of parchment paper to keep the candy from attaching to the candy in other cookies.

Important Tips for Making Stained Glass Sugar Cookies:

Do not crush the Jolly Rancher candies too soon before using, as they will adhere to one another and become a hardened mass of candy.
If the dough is rolled too thin, keeping the cookies together while moving them to a baking sheet will be very difficult. Using a flat cookie spatula will help but make sure the cookie dough is at least ¼ inch.
Thicker cookies will require more crushed candy. A basting brush (or clean toothbrush) can help keep the tiny piece of candy inside the cookie opening.