Stained glass window biscuits

message for Christmas of 2009 :

I found perfect cookies to put a small Christmas tree with golden thread to keep them high. But that's a shame to leave them in there because they are really good, very dry and crispy, yet softer after a few days of waiting. In addition, it's quite cheap, doesn't take place in the house once the holidays have passed. The best point : every year you can renew these. This recipe comes from many websites, but I found it on the great page held by Jasmine.

Ingredients for about fifty biscuits:

150g softened butter

200g sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used rum in which my vanilla sticks marinate)

1 egg

280g flour

20 hard colored and transparent candies

+ Food coloring if you want a more colorful result

Beat together the softened butter and sugar in a bowl until you get a foamy cream. Add the egg and zest and beat again until the ingredients are well mixed. Add flour gradually, stirring slowly. When the dough has hardened, cover with cellophane and place it in the refrigerator for several hours.

If you want to color the dough, it's time to pour a few drops of food coloring. As I wanted more color, I separated the dough into several pieces. I haven't always mixed the dye completely so I could keep marbled effect. The colors go fast on the fingers. For clothes, I do not know yet.

Prepare a working plan on which you'll spread the dough. Flour it, and keep with you a ramekin full of flour for the table and your hands. With a floured rolling-pin, flatten the dough a few millimeters thick, turning it upside-down several times during the operation to make sure it spreads evenly. If it sticks, sprinkle some flour.

Preheat your oven to 180°C. Cover a baking plate with parchment paper. Cut your cookies with a cookie cutter and make a hole in the center with a smaller one, then put them on the parchment paper. Break your sweets with a blender. Fill the holes with splinters of candy directly on the parchment paper. Bake 10 short minutes, until edges begin to brown. Let the cookies cool before removing from the plate, because the candy has not yet hardened.

These cookies keep very long in a sealed box, and another week if necessary. But in the tree, it does not count, they will not change.

Detail from a greeting card collected in a mall in Oslo, 2008.