Stained Glass Cookies

(The plan was to have these up for Valentine's Day, sorry! You can use them for anything though, so here it goes.)

The original recipe I found this from was on Kraft, but I thought the cookies were yucky...so now I just use my favorite sugar cookie recipe and follow these directions. You can use any sugar cookie recipe, or I listed my favorite one too. Super fun for any occasion and the kids love em.

For the Cookies:

2/3 cup dairy free margarine, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

1 Tbsp soy milk

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

In a large bowl beat margarine on high 30 seconds. Add sugar, baking powder and salt and beat until combined, scraping sides occasionally. Beat in egg, milk and vanilla. Beat in the flour. Chill for at least 1 hour so it's not too sticky.

For the Cutouts:

2-3 rolls of lifesavers candy

Preheat oven to 350. On a lightly floured surface roll out to about 1/4-1/2 inch thickness. Cut into desired shapes and then trace smaller versions of each cookie shape on the dough (or use tiny cookie cutters or pie cutter shapes) leaving at least a 1/2 inch border of dough from the inside shape. Cut out and remove dough from the center of each shape; set aside. Place all the cookie cutouts on baking sheets covered with tinfoil. Now crush each color of candy seperately between 2 layers of wax paper with a mallet (you can use a plastic baggie but it will most likely rip from the sharp candy pieces). Spoon crushed candy inside centers of cutouts. Bake 6-8 minutes or until candy is melted and cookies are lightly browned. Cool cookies completely before removing from foil.

*Note: This last time I made them they didn't have the "stained glass" look because I overfilled the candy thinking that would be better, but it wasn't because the candies were all gummy. When you fill the holes in the centers of your cookies just fill to the same thickness as your cookies. They will shrink down when they melt but that's okay!