Christmas Stained-Glass Shortbreads

Today is a recipe is easy to make, very Christmassy (as we head towards the special day) and tasty to boot! You can adapt them to hang on your Christmas tree if you fancy so that your fairy lights shine through the little coloured windows you create.

Christmas Stained-Glass Shortbreads – Ingredient List

caster sugar, sunflower spread, vanilla extract, plain flour, salt, boiled sweets in various colours

Christmas Stained-Glass Shortbreads – Process (makes about 20 different sized biscuits)

• Cream together:
  • 1 C sunflower spread
  • ½ C caster sugar
• Once creamed mix in:
  • 2 tsp vanilla extract
• Add to the mix
  • 2C plain flour
  • ¼tsp salt
• Do NOT overbeat – once it’s mixed and about to come together

  

  • dump onto cling film
  • use cling film to push it together into a ball
  • tighten cling film to seal it
  • leave in the fridge for an hour to chill
• In individual sandwich bags crush boiled sweets (one sweet of one colour per bag)
• Make sure they are ground very fine
• After an hour you can retrieve the mix from the fridge
• Prep two baking trays with baking paper
• Flour another sheet of baking paper to work on (this dough is very fragile and baking paper is a good way of lifting the dough onto your rolling pin for flipping)

  

• Roll out dough to about ¼ inch deep
• Cut out – Christmas Trees, stars…whichever shapes you fancy
• Place biscuit shapes onto baking tray
• Cut out your windows in the shapes (I did stockings & star cut outs)
• If you want to hang on a tree make a hole in the top of the shape to hang thread through
• Sprinkle a fine layer of  the boiled sweet dust into the cutouts you have created in your shortbreads
• When the tray is full pop into the fridge to cool again for an hour
• preheat oven to 180°C
• Biscuits take a different length of time dependant on their size; 8-12 mins.
• Basic rule is cook ’til they start to go golden on edges (see pic)
• Leave to cool on the baking tray until your stained glass is set
• Carefully lift onto a cooling rack to cool.

  

Enjoy! Eating, sharing, hanging as Christmas tree decorations or give as a gift.

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