Stained Glass Cookies for your Christmas Tree

It's been a busy year and I can't believe that it's almost Christmas! It's the first Christmas in our new house so it's very exciting and we decided to get a real Christmas tree which I've not had before.  We bought a smallish one as we don't have much space and bought a few decorations to go on the tree. I thought the tree looked a little bare so I decided to make my own decorations. I remember making stained glass cookies a few years ago and decided to give it another go. The recipe is one of Mary Berry's which I found online. I had a selection of Christmas cookie cutters and I used a sharp knife to cut out the middle bits. The final result is amazing and it looks really good on our tree especially when it catches the light. You can easily make these in one evening and it will be a great project for the kids. I'm going to try some dried orange slices next to go on the tree. Any other suggestions for homemade Christmas tree decorations? 

I'm sending this to AlphaBakes hosted by Caroline from Caroline Makes and myself on alternate months. The letter this  month is 'X' and Caroline is accepting everything Christmas related. 

These little tree decorations are perfect for Treat Petite hosted by Kat from the Baking Explorer and Stuart from Cakeyboi. The theme this month is Christmas.

They are also perfect for Festive Family Foodies hosted by Vanesther from Bangers & Mash and Louisa from Eat Your Veg.

 I bought a pack of fruit boiled sweets to make the stained glass effect 

 fill the middle with crushed sweets 

 

 Our Christmas tree :) 

Recipe from Mary Berry which I found online

Stained Glass Cookies

I saw these on Martha Stewart http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/stained-glass-cookies
and thought they looked so cool. I actually used a different recipe in the end which I got from one of my books and here's how they turned out. I think you can use any basic sugar cookie recipe. I found the bigger shapes with big cut outs worked best. I tried to do some alphabet ones but they didn't turn out well as the space was too small to fill with the sweets.

This is what it looks like on a tree. It's really pretty when it catches the light.

Stained glass cookies:

110g butter, softened
110g castger sugar
125ml honey
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
450g plain flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
1/2 tsp salt
coloured hard boiled sweets

• Cream the butter, sugar, honey, egg and vanilla extract until smooth.
  
  In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt.
• Add to the butter mixture and combine.
• Gather the dough into a ball and chill for 2 hours (or 1 hour if you are in a hurry)
• Preheat the oven to 180C.
• Line baking sheets with foil, shiny side up.
• Lightly flour a work surface and roll out the dough to approximately 1/2inch thickness.
• Cut out shapes using a cookie cutter.
• Cut a smaller shape within the cut cookie with a smaller cutter or a sharp knife.
• If using as ornaments, make a little hole at the top (I used a straw)
• Crush the sweets (I put them in a resealable bag and used a rolling pin)
• Spoon the sweets into the centre of the cookies.
• Bake for 6-8 minutes until the sweets have melted and the cookies are golden.
• Be careful that the sweets dont bubble over
• Allow to cool completely before removing