This recipe for Stained Glass Shortbread Cookies started out of the cookbook my mom first got for me, which I added pink candies to for the Valentines Day holiday! I would definitely experiment with different candies in this recipe, as I used peach gummy candies in mine the first time, and the shortbread was so soft that it crumbles as you bite into it and you’re left with this chewy candy afterward. Make sure you make these bite-sized to accommodate for that!
Stained Glass Shortbread Cookies
Ingredients
Shortbread Cookie Ingredients:
- 2 cup All-purpose flour
- 1 cup Butter, softened (we use Country Crock's plant based stick butter)
- 0.5 cup Confectioners (powdered) sugar
- 0.25 tsp Salt
- 0.25 tsp Baking powder
- 1 tsp Vanilla extract
Toppings:
- 0.5 package Gummy bears, gummy peaches, jolly ranchers, etc. (need 8 oz. bag)
- 2 tbsp Sugar or honey, to sprinkle/drizzle over cookies
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 °F.
- In a large bowl with a mixer at low-medium speed, beat the above shortbread ingredients until well mixed and dough forms into a ball, scraping the bowl occasionally to combine.
- Take dough ball out of bowl and place onto a cutting board, and spoon 1” sized balls out onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet. Gently flatten and press two thumbprints into a heart shape, continuing with the remainder of the batter and cookies.
- Place two gummy bears in the two sides of the heart or one quartered gummy peach/jolly rancher in the thumbprint made in step 3. Sprinkle cookies with sugar if desired.
- Bake for 15-20 mins, depending on darkness of sheet used and oven temperature variability, until cookies are slightly golden brown around the edges.
- Let cool on pan for 3 minutes, then remove to cooling rack. Finish with drizzle of light honey!
Notes:
- I ended up using Haribo Peach gummies, which ended up being too big and tended to overflow. If using a bigger gummy, cut into smaller pieces unless you don’t mind a little candy overflow!
- If you’d like the middle of the cookie (where the candy heart/stained glass is) to be softer and less crystallized/chewy, take the cookies out of the oven about 3-5 minutes earlier (or cook at 375°F for 9-10 mins instead).
- I used Air-Bake pans, so I had to cook the cookies for longer, but subtract 3-5 mins from my original 20 mins in the oven if using a normal cookie sheet.