Lorraine Pascale's Ginger & Cinnamon Stained Glass Cookies

Holiday entertaining and gift giving during the holiday season can sometimes be quite the tedious task especially with a busy work schedule but this year it has been made easy by Gusto TV - Canada’s new food and lifestyle specialty channel.

Whether you are looking to treat someone but are in a pickle, bestselling food author Lorraine Pascale shares her last-minute gift ideas. Lorraine has a hamper of edible goodies - including these spicy cookies that also make beautiful Christmas decorations. 

You’ll need a 12cm/4½ inch star or snowflake-shaped cookie cutter and a 4cm/1½ inch star cutter.

INGREDIENTS

100g/3½oz butter, diced

100g/3½oz soft light brown sugar

2 tbsp golden syrup

1 tsp black treacle

1 tbsp ground ginger 

1 tbsp ground cinnamon

Large pinch ground cloves

Pinch chilli powder (optional)

250g/9oz plain flour 

½ tsp baking soda

6 hard candies (in different colours), each ground in a pestle and mortar or blended in a food processor

For the icing:

75g/3oz royal icing sugar

DIRECTIONS

Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6. Line two baking trays with greaseproof paper. Heat the butter, sugar, golden syrup, treacle, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and chilli powder in a saucepan until the butter melts and the sugar has dissolved.

Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the flour and baking soda. You should have a smooth, but fairly stiff dough. Chill for five minutes (it’s important to work with the dough while it is still a little warm as it becomes quite dry and crumbly upon cooling completely).

Roll the dough out to a 1cm/½in thickness on a large sheet of greaseproof paper. Using a 12cm/4½ inch star or snowflake shaped cookie cutter to cut out the cookies. Use a 4cm/1½ inch star cutter to stamp out the centre of each cookie. 

Use a palette knife to lift the large stars onto a baking sheet. To make ornament decorations, use a wooden skewer to make a hole in the top of each cookie.  Re-roll the remaining dough and the leftover smaller stars and continue to make the cookies in this way until all the dough is used up. 

Place a little of the ground hard candies in the centre of each star, using a separate colour for each cookie. Bake in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until the cookie is crisp and beginning to darken and the candy has melted to fill the hole. Remove from the oven and use the wooden skewer to make sure the holes are in tact.

Leave to cool completely, then slide a palette knife under each cookie to release them from the paper.

Mix the royal icing sugar with a little water until you have a thick paste and pipe or drizzle onto the cookies.

More Holiday Recipes:
Nigel Slater's Hearty Party Hotpot
Rick Stein's Pear Soufflé With Pear Cider Ice Cream

Enjoy!