394.262 (Secular holidays - Holidays of March, April, May) - A Memorial Day Post

My mother's church has an annual Memorial Day bake sale. The church sits right on the parade route, so as long as the weather is decent (which sometimes happens in Wisconsin), they do pretty well. Since I was in town for a surprise party that day, she asked me to bake some cookies for the bake sale.

I've been wanting to try the "stained glass" cookie technique for a while, so here are the awesome results!

The hubs helped with these cookies, for which I was EXTREMELY thankful. They're kind of a pain!

I made my normal sugar cookie dough (the one out of the Betty Crocker (c)1973 cook book) and cut out stars using two different sized cookie cutters. After a little SCIENCE!, the hubs and I discovered that the best way to make them without either a) the candy melting too fast and then becoming bubbled and burnt or b) the dough being under cooked was to follow the steps below:

1. Bake the cookies for 2-3 minutes on the parchment paper lined sheet before adding the candy.
2. Remove the cookies from the oven and add "large-ish" chunks of jolly rancher to the center of the cookie, using more candy than you think you'll need to ensure complete coverage of the inside of the cookie. Also, doing this carefully so no candy ends up on the dough itself, but stays on the inside of the cookie.
3. Bake until all of the candy has melted (another 3-5 minutes) and the cookies appear a little brown around the edges.
4. Use a toothpick to quickly (and carefully) spread liquid candy to any blank spots.

Instead of wasting or re-rolling the middles I cut out of the cookies, I baked the middles and then frosted them with a simple pour-frosting (Wilton recipe).

They definitely turned out beautifully, though! I've got to hand that to them! And if you like jolly ranchers, they're pretty taste-y, too!

A few more pictures for posterity, right?

Cooking in the window - I love the reflection on the window sill!

Cookies in my mother's antique glass bowl. Aren't they patriotic?

Closeup on my favorite cookie of the batch - I love the way the color swirls!