Stained-Glass Window Biscuits

stained-glass-window-biscuits

These egg-free stained glass window biscuits are as pretty as they are delicious!

I’ve given this recipe an extreme makeover – with some new pics, a new list of ingredients and a new how-to. My new improved egg-free biscuit recipe is super simple both in terms of what you need and what you do.

All you really need to make these is flour, butter and sugar although the mixed spice adds a most jolly Christmas flavour. The dough is so simple to make and it really holds it’s shape.

Crushing boiled sweets is hard yakka and not for the faint hearted! I’ve discovered that if you pop the sweets in half way through baking and if you leave enough space for the sweet to spread, you can just add them in whole. Save your muscles and your rolling pin for something more interesting instead!

Now you can re-roll the cut outs back into the dough but I like to bake them, they make a super duper one-bite biscuit!

The trick to these biscuits is finding the sweet spot (excuse the pun) when removing them from the baking tray. Try and move them too early and the sweetie won’t have set, move them too late and the sweetie will have hardened and set on to the paper. A palette knife is my weapon of choice in transferring biscuit to tray – it never fails!

It should be said that though that baking a boiled sweet makes it no less crunchy so these biscuits as pretty as they are should be consumed with caution. The stained glass should be eaten in a similar way to a boiled sweet, more sucking and less crunching otherwise you might find yourself with some broken teeth and a big, dentist’s bill and there’s nothing very Christmassy about that!

Have you got a favourite cookie recipe?

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Makes 16

Ingredients

100g unsalted butter, cold and cubed

175g plain flour

1 teaspoon mixed spice

50g caster sugar

1 tablespoon milk

16 small boiled sweets

stained-glass window biscuits 3

How to – Traditional

  1. Whizz the flour, butter and mixed spice in a food processor to fine crumbs. Add the sugar and milk and pulse until the dough comes together.
  2. Bring the dough together on a lightly floured surface and gently knead until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and pop in the fridge for about half an hour.
  3. Preheat oven to 180C and line 2 oven trays with baking paper.
  4. Roll pastry between sheets of baking paper until 4mm thick. Cut shapes from dough using 7cm sized cutters and place on prepared trays.
  5. Use smaller biscuit cutters  (about 4cm) to cut out the centre of each biscuit to make a window. If can be tricky to remove the centre cut out, a toothpick or cake tester makes this easy.
  6. Make a  hole in the top of each biscuit for threading through ribbon, if desired.
  7. Bake biscuits, uncovered  for 5 minutes.
  8. Remove trays from the oven and pop one sweet into the centre of each biscuit. Return biscuits to the oven for another 7 minutes or until browned lightly.
  9. Cool the biscuits on oven trays and then carefully remove to a cooling rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar, if desired.

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 How to – Thermomix

  1. Place the flour, butter and mixed spice in a TM bowl and mix for 5 seconds  on speed 6. The mixture should look like breadcrumbs.
  2. Add the sugar and milk and set the dial to closed lid position. Knead the dough for 1 minute on interval speed.
  3. Bring the dough together on a lightly floured surface and gently knead until smooth. Cover with plastic wrap and pop in the fridge for about half an hour.
  4. Preheat oven to 180C and line 2 oven trays with baking paper.
  5. Roll pastry between sheets of baking paper until 4mm thick. Cut shapes from dough using 7cm sized cutters and place on prepared trays.
  6. Use smaller biscuit cutters  (about 4cm) to cut out the centre of each biscuit to make a window. If can be tricky to remove the centre cut out, a toothpick or cake tester makes this easy.
  7. Make a  hole in the top of each biscuit for threading through ribbon, if desired.
  8. Bake biscuits, uncovered  for 5 minutes.
  9. Remove trays from the oven and pop one sweet into the centre of each biscuit. Return biscuits to the oven for another 7 minutes or until browned lightly.
  10. Cool the biscuits on oven trays and then carefully remove to a cooling rack to cool completely. Dust with icing sugar, if desired.

 TIP! These biscuits will look good on the tree for up to a month but are best eaten within 3 days.