Stained Glass Cookie Cups

Make sure to put a cupcake liner before putting in rice or else the rice will stick to the dough!

To make this, I used this vegan sugar cookie recipe and vegan stained glass cookie recipe.

Here are the steps:

1)     Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2)     Spray 12 muffin tins with cooking spray

3)     Make the vegan sugar cookie recipe

4)     Cut out 2 inch circles and place them at the bottom of the muffin tin. Use some cookie dough to cover the rest of the inside of the muffin tin

5)     Put cupcake liner on top of the dough, before filling with rice. I forgot this when I made it and just poured the rice directly in. without the cupcake liner. The rice stuck to the cookie and couldn’t be removed after baking.

6)     Bake for 10 min

7)     Then cover with aluminum foil and bake an additional 10 min.

8)     To make the covers, use this recipe: vegan stained glass cookie recipe. Cut 2 inch circles, and then cut a shape within the circle. Best to move the circle onto a baking tray, and then cut the shape out on the baking try. Fill the shape inside with hard candy. Bake for 10 min at 350 degrees.

Stained Glass Cookie Cups (~from people.com)

Ingredients

3 ⅓ cups all-purpose flour
¼ tsp. baking soda
¼ tsp. table salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened
¾ cup plus 2 tbsp. granulated sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 tsp. lime zest plus 2 tsp. fresh juice
3 cups uncooked rice
24 hard candies (like Jolly Ranchers), crushed
Assorted holiday candy
2 oz. vanilla frosting

Directions

1. Whisk together flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl. In a separate bowl, beat the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add the egg, vanilla, lime zest and lime juice, and beat until combined, 2 to 3 minutes. Add half of the dry flour mixture; beat at low speed until completely combined. Sprinkle remaining flour mixture on a work surface. Turn dough out on work surface; knead until soft and pliable, 3 to 5 minutes, incorporating all the flour on work surface. Wrap dough with plastic wrap, and chill 1 hour.

2. Preheat oven to 350°. Unwrap and roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to ¼-inch thick. Cut out 12 circles, using a 2-inch round cutter, and 12 (6×1-inch) strips. (Chill remaining dough for use in step 4.) Lightly coat a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray, and place 1 dough circle in the bottom of each cup. Fit 1 strip around inside walls of each cup, pressing the dough round to seal. Place 1 paper cupcake liner in each dough cup; fill each with ¼ cup uncooked rice.

3. Bake in oven 10 minutes; cover pan with aluminum foil, and bake 10 more minutes. Cool completely on wire rack. Discard paper cups and rice. Remove cookies from pan.

4. Cut 12 circles with a 2½-inch round cutter from reserved dough. Using small cookie cutters, make 1 cutout in center of each circle. Place cookies with cutout centers on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Bake at 350° for 5 minutes. Remove from oven. Sprinkle crushed hard candies in centers of cookies. Return to oven, and bake until candy melts, about 5 minutes. Cool completely on baking sheet.

5. Fill cookie cups with your favorite candy. Spread or pipe a ring of frosting around edge of each cookie cup, and attach 1 stained-glass “lid” on each cup. Let dry completely.

Makes: 12 cookie cups
Active time: 40 minutes
Total time: 1 hour 40 minutes, plus chilling