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These easy-to-make, show-stopping Stained Glass Cross Cookies are the perfect addition to your Easter table! Made with homemade sugar cookie dough and Jolly Rancher candies, they’re also great for VBS, Baptisms, and more!
Easter is coming, and I wanted to make something special this year. I decided to make these Stained Glass Cross Cookies, and I love how they turned out!
My son likes to help me in the kitchen when I make special holiday treats. We really like to make cookies together, and these Stained Glass Cross Cookies were no exception! They remind us of the real reason we celebrate Resurrection Sunday.
I also love that in the center of the cross that bore death, and sin, and shame, is the stained glass in bright, beautiful colors representing hope. The story doesn’t end with the cross!
Stained Glass Cross Cookies
The process for making these stained glass cookies is so simple! Once you make them, you’ll make them over and over for every holiday! We make stained glass shamrock cookies and even stained glass American flag cookies. They are so fun!
Video Instructions
Before we get into the step-by-step details, here is a quick video overview of the process of making these cookies!
Supplies
While this is a simple sugar cookie dough, there are a few things beyond the cookie dough ingredients you’ll need to make this recipe work.
- Jolly Rancher Candy– You can probably use any hard candy, but Jolly Rancher is our favorite for color variety.
- Cross Cookie Cutters – I used these cross cookie cutters I found on Amazon. They come in a set of three. I used the largest for the cookies and the smallest to cut out the holes for the stained glass.
- Food Processor – If you have a Magic Bullet, that’s going to be best, as it will allow you to do a small amount of candy at a time. You can also just crush the candy into small pieces with a rolling pin or meat tenderizer if you have to.
You don’t need a lot of candies to make the stained glass portion. Separate out the colors you want, and then unwrap them. One color at a time, use your food processor to smash them down into little chunks. They don’t need to be a fine powder, they will met just fine.
I used these Jolly Rancher colors to make mine for Easter:
- Watermelon (for pink)
- Green Apple (for green)
- Blue Raspberry (for blue)
Make the cookie dough, roll it out, and cut out your large crosses. Place them on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper. You can technically make these without parchment paper, but they never turn out well for me when I do.
One color at a time, sprinkle some of the crumbled candy into the little cross cavities. Try not to get any on the big cookie portion, but if you do, it’s not a huge deal.
Once they’re filled, they should look something like this. Fill them with a single color, or with multiple colors. It looks pretty no matter how you decide to do it!
Bake them for the directed time (see recipe below) and let them cool completely before eating! Don’t they turn out beautifully? Perfect for Easter, or the week of Easter, or a baptism celebration!
Even More Easter Ideas
- DIY Easter Candy Bouquet – great alternative to baskets or gift for someone on Easter!
- Easter Egg Oreos – This cute dipped Easter egg Oreos are as cute as they are delicious!
- DIY Easter Bunny Candy Jars – these are so cute and easy to make!
- DIY Easter Deco Mesh Wreath – this is such an adorable wreath and the tutorial makes it easy to make!
Stained Glass Cross Cookies
Video
Ingredients
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 cup butter softened
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 1 egg yolk
- 1 tablespoon mayonaisse
- 1/2 tablespoon vanilla
- 1/8 teaspoon baking powder
- pinch of salt
- 12 Jolly Ranchers
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 350F
- Cream your egg, butter, mayonnaise, sugar, and vanilla together in a bowl until creamy.
- Add in the baking powder, flour and salt and mix with a fork until the mixture is crumbly.
- If the mixture is still crumbly, mix with your hands until the dough sticks together well.
- Roll the dough out on a floured surface until the cookies are about 1/4″ thick.
- Use the cookie cutters to cut out the large cross cookies and place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.
- Use the mini cross cookie cutter and cut out a mini cross from the large cross cookies.
- Use a food processor to crush the jolly rancher candies one color at a time.
- Use your fingers or a spoon to put in the crushed candies into the mini cross cavity.
- Bake them at 350F for 6 minutes.
- Then turn the pan and cook for an additional 3 minutes.
- Allow them to cool on the pan for 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack to cool completely.
Notes
- Let them cool on the pan for a few minutes before trying to remove them from it.
- Don't overfill the small cross hole with too much Jolly Rancher. A little is fine.
Nutrition
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Hi. These are so lovely! Do you think sour cream would work instead of the mayo?
It could? I’m unsure of the ratio difference since mayo has a tendency to be thicker in consistency than mayo. Let me know if you experiment!
I am not a baker…do you think I could use refrigerated cookie dough?
Thank you! I can’t wait to make them. They look so pretty.
Hi,
Just wondering, can these cookies be frozen?
Thanks!
The candy portion will get VERY brittle if you freeze them. My advice would be to freeze the cut out uncooked dough, and to freeze it. Then allow it to thaw at room temperature before adding candy and baking. Hope that helps!
Done!! Awesome! The dough ended up being a bit crumbly (i think that’s where the mayo helps) but they turned out gorgeous!
Hi!
What can i use in place of mayonnaise? Here in france, i’m afraid mayo will be too mustardy tasting…
thanks!
Hey, Julie! You could try using butter to replace. Let me know how that works!
Thank you so much for replying :)) we are making them today and will let you know how it goes !
Hi! Making this now, when do I use the butter!??
Thanks!
Hey! Thanks for catching that! It goes in with the mayo mixture. Have fun making them!! =)