St. Paddy’s day at our house has always been just for fun, the abundance of shamrocks, rainbows, pots of gold and leprechauns always bring out anyone’s mischievous side. I drag out all my green depression ware dishes and set them up on tables, throw a few good luck pieces amongst them and add a few shamrocks and then, start cooking anything that is or can be green or rainbow.
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Easy Stained Glass Cookies Tips:
- Use a no spread cookie recipe like ours below. You don’t wish for these Shamrock sugar cookies to spread as they bake thus stretching the little pool of candy.
- Use sharp cookie cutters so the edges are very defined. And with these stained glass shamrock cookies, the smaller cutter must fit inside the bigger cookie. So that there is plenty of cookie around the stained glass area.
- Jolly Ranchers make easy stained glass cookies but lifesavers will work. Place the hard candies in a ziplock freezer quality baggie and cover it with a kitchen towel. Then pound it with the flat side of a meat mallet on your cutting board until crushed.
- Make sure when you place the cookies on the cookie sheet, the dough is stuck to the parchment lined pan so the melted candy doesn’t leak.
I have been known to serve my children green milk or green pancakes for St. Paddy’s day. So sad my grandbabies don’t live close to us. Because I can think of loads of tricks to play on/with them on this tricky holiday. But I can do one thing, I can make and send them St Patricks Day Cookies. And I think they needed a batch of special magic cookies. Cookies with a stained glass translucent center in the shape of all things lucky like these stained glass Shamrock Cookies.
If you enjoyed these St Patricks Day Cookies then try these:
- Leprechaun Poo treats
- Rainbow Treat Bags with free Printable Topper
- St Patrick’s Day Desserts
- St Patrick’s Day Fun and Classic Breakfast Recipes
Stained Glass Shamrock Cookies
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup butter softened
- 3/4 cup sugar
- 1 large egg
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 2 1/2 cups flour
- 8 ounces green fruit-flavored hard candies (1 cup crushed)
- shamrock cookie cutters two different sizes
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in the egg, vanilla, and salt. Slowly add flour, mixing until just combined
- Divide the dough into half, flatten into two separate discs, wrap with clear wrap and place in the fridge for at least 3 hours
- Heat oven to 350 degrees
- Remove dough from the fridge and let stand for 5-10 minutes.
- On a lightly floured pastry mat, roll out each piece of dough to a ⅛-inch thickness.
- Using your largest shamrock cookie cutter, cut the dough into shamrocks and place on parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them 1 inch apart.
- At this point, you could make plain shamrock cookies and bake these cookies as is. And sprinkle with sugar or green sugar as soon as you remove them from the oven.
- But if you are making stained glass cookies- use a smaller shamrock cookie cutter that fits inside the shamrock cookies to cut out the centers from each cookie.
- Place the hard candy in a freezer-quality ziplock baggie, throw a kitchen towel over it and pound them with the flat side of a meat mallet until crushed.
- Spoon the crushed candy into the center of each cookie, filling full.
- Bake until just golden at the edges, 7 to 9 minutes.
- Let cool on the baking pans for 5 minutes, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely.
Gina Wamsley
March 2, 2015 at 4:07 pmThese are so cute!! Pinning!
Christy
March 2, 2015 at 11:09 pmI love these for St. Patrick's Day! Pinned!
Jamie Sherman
March 4, 2015 at 4:39 amWhat a fun treat for St. Patrick's Day! 🙂