Foodie Friday - Stained Glass Window Biscuits

Hi Sweeties!

I hope you've all had a good week :) Thanks for the 1000 (and counting) hits on my blog - that makes me really happy. And for the feedback - whether good or bad - I always take it to heart.

So,am I the only one who's really getting that warm,fuzzy,cinnamon-and-oranges Christmassy feeling? I bet not. Tomorrow we get to whip out our Advent Calendars and the countdown to Christmas officially starts. With chocolate. I can live with that.

One thing I really love about Christmas, is baking dozens and dozens of cookies. The whole house smells amazing, all the jars are full of awesome goodies and I always share the cheer with others (because a sugar high is always best when shared). A girl I follow on Twitter challenged all her followers to bake Christmas cookies and to hand them out to the beggars at traffic lights. I am definitely going to do that - anyone else keen to join me? I think it's a great idea.

Back to today's recipe. I made these beautiful and almost too-amazing-to-eat biscuits for the first time last year...and it was a bit of a disaster to begin with. The recipe calls for 100g clear boiled sweets or lollies, crushed. Nothing too inconspicuous about that sentence, but the word "crushed" should have been a dead giveaway to me that this recipe spells trouble.

So there I was, struggling for hours to crush a packet of Sparkles (hard boiled sweets). I used a granite rolling pin - no luck. I used a hammer - no luck. I used my husband's brute strength - no luck. I used my Twister chopper - and damaged the blades. All I ended up with, was something resembling sherbet, and shards of sweets freaking everywhere. But instead of giving up, I said "screw it", and used whole sweets instead of "crushed" ones. And it worked.

Before you decide not to attempt this recipe based on my struggle, here's a picture of the marvellous Stained Glass Window biscuits:

Too beautiful. Tastes good,too.

See, they're gorgeous. They take a bit of work, but it's so worth it in the end. Here goes:

Ingredients

250g butter, softened
2 tsp lemon/orange rind
½ tsp almond essence
165g castor sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp water
335g cake flour
100g clear boiled sweets or lollies, NOT crushed (wink-wink)

Method

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees Celsius.

STEP 1: Beat the butter, rind, essence, sugar, egg and water until smooth. Sift in the flour and knead until smooth. Wrap in cling wrap and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

STEP 2: On a floured surface, roll the dough to 4mm thick. Using cookie cutters of your choice (the more Christmassy, the better) cut out shapes and place on baking trays lined with paper.

STEP 3: Using a tiny cookie cutter (or the handle of a wooden spoon) make holes in the centre of each cookie. Bake the cookies for 5 minutes, then remove from oven and fill the centre with the sweets. Return to the oven for 5 more minutes.

STEP 4: Leave to cool on a tray.

And now you have some amazing biscuits to show off with.

To turn your Stained Glass Window Biscuits into tree decorations (which will also make great pre-Christmas gifts for your friends and family), do the following:

Make another small hole near the edge of the cookie before baking and when it has cooled down, thread a piece of ribbon through the hole for tying onto the tree.

And if you do decide to crush your sweets, you can add different colours to the biscuits to get a multi-coloured effect.

If you decide to make these, please post some pictures! I'm definitely going to make them again - I think Eli will really enjoy them as a treat.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend. We are going to a Christmas market and Carols by Candlelight on Sunday...I'm excited. It means the end of the year - a time to relax, unwind, reflect and eat amazing things - is on our doorstep.

Lots of love,

Maryke