When I was little my mom and I used to make these stained glass cookies at Christmas. The exact recipe she used has been lost in the past 37 years, so I have had to modify it somewhat.
One of the first things that is different is the actual shape. Mom and I would roll the cookie dough into ropes and form them so they resembled the lead in actual stained glass. That is definitely a way you can do these, however I now cut out the cookie shape and then carefully use a small sharp knife to cut out the center. The other modification is that I had to find a cookie recipe to use. The one I found is by Tupperware, circa 1980, and is called Granny’s Sugar Cookies. My guess is that the recipe card was handed out when someone (my mom) bought Tupperware cookie cutters because the back says “TIPS FOR MAKING PERFECT COOKIES WITH YOUR TUPPERWARE COOKIE CUTTERS”.
Onward!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup of butter
1 cup of sugar
1 large egg
2 cups of all purpose flour (plus 1/4 cup for rolling)
2 teaspoons of baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
a bag of Lifesavers (honestly, I can’t even begin to give an amount. It really depends on how many cookies you plan on making, the shapes of the “voids”, the size of the “voids”, etc. use your best judgment and remember that the dough can continue to chill if you have to run out for more!)
Directions:
Cream together the butter and sugar. Add in the egg and vanilla. Then sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Divide the dough into to two balls and chill for 2 hours.
While the dough is chilling you get to work out some aggression! Separate the Lifesavers by color, place each color in it’s own baggy. Go outside with a hammer and crush those suckers up! They don’t need to be crushed to powder, just into small pieces.
When dough is chilled remove one ball from refrigerator and roll out to about 1/8 inch thickness. Cut the dough into your desired shapes. Then, with a very sharp (be careful!) small knife, cut out a void in the center of the cookie (see notes below for more information). Likewise, you can just roll the dough into ropes and form into the desired shapes.
Place the cookie cut outs on silicone bakeware, parchment, or greased cookie sheet. Carefully put desired colors of crushed Lifesavers into the cookie’s void, keeping as much off the cookie as possible and spreading out to all corners. You can be as creative as you like with mixing colors!
Bake cookies at 375 for 8-10 minutes. Let cool completely before removing.
Notes: the cookies will puff up some, so make sure that the void is large enough to still be seen after baking. I always figure the very first batch is a tester batch to see how well they turn out, then I make changes based on that. To cool the cookies quickly to avoid waiting to long between batches, place potholders on a shelf in your refrigerator and move the cookie sheet directly from the oven to those potholders and chill for about 5 minutes. It is also a good idea to keep the cookie dough chilled until ready for use to make it easy to roll out.
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