It’s that time of year again for lugging out the decorations. Thankfully in this house anyways, most of these decorations are homemade and many of them edible. Last year we made homemade gingerbread stained glass cookies. This year we finally decided holiday or no holiday we did not want to be chomping through some perfectly delicious gingerbread and encounter an insidious “lemon” or “orange” flavor at its center. We are also not about sugar that causes you to first bounce around the walls and then five minutes later fall on your face. So we opted for some homemade candy to accompany our hearts, stars, and spaceship, errrr, penis ornaments that hang on the tree.

We used brown rice syrup in place of the corn syrup, which surprisingly improved both color and flavor – making the candy slightly more caramel-y and also enhancing the “Rouge Noël.” What’s more, when you’re making stained glass you get to pick up a whole red pool of hardened candy and smash it onto another hard surface until it shatters like an old mirror.

Then you pick up the delicious shards, put them inside two thick ziplocs, and smash them with a hammer until you have dust.

It’s a delightful process evocative of the season itself – lots of “Christmas red” and bouts of (ahem) frustration followed by moments of jubilation. From there you mold little hearts and stars and whatever other shapes you desire out of gingerbread, bake them halfway, recut them, bake them a moment more, then pour some candy in and bake a few minutes more until the candy melts but before it gets all blood boil-y.

The resulting cookie is delicious of course, and wonderfully glowing red in the center. They’re divine.

For instructions on how to make and bake the cookies, go to last year’s gingerbread stained glass post.

Peppermint candy
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup brown rice syrup
2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar
1/2 teaspoon red coloring (we used Wilton’s Christmas Red, which was much more saturated than store the bought ones we’ve used in the past)
1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract (or flavor of your choosing)

Get ready. Make sure you are all setup with your food coloring and extract. Grease a cookie sheet with butter or ghee. Get a rubber spatula and wire rack ready. Set aside.

Cook candy. Put the ingredients (except the extract and coloring) in a heavy-bottomed sauce pan. Place a candy thermometer so it’s touching the bottom and close to the center of the pan (you can place it at a tilt). Turn on to medium and allow sugar to melt stirring periodically with a metal spoon, until it comes to a boil. Once there, allow it to boil without stirring until the candy thermometer reads 320 degrees (right below hard crack). It’s very important not to stir. This will take about 15-20 minutes. The candy will start to smoke slightly, but don’t be alarmed.

Tip: Many recipes say to put leave it on high and allow it to come to 340 degrees, but we find this unnecessary and more stressful.

Color, flavor, and cool. Once it comes to 320, remove from heat and quickly stir in the coloring and extract. Quickly spread out on the greased cookie sheet as thinly as you can. Place the cookie sheet on the wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Smash candy After it’s cool, pick up and and sort of smash against a hard surface to shatter the candy on the cookie sheet. Repeat as desirable. Take a good cup of the shards and double bag in ziploc. Smash with a hammer on a firm surface that won’t get dented until it’s mostly dust and small pieces.

Go make some gingerbread cookies!

We have been making these shockingly gingery ginger cookies since summer. They are head-to-head with my other favorite ginger cookie, the ginger snap. We’d been looking for thick, chewy, and gingery cookies (but not so much it burns) for a long time. I’m a longtime fan of 101cookbooks.com, and Heidi has definitely found a winner with these triple ginger cookies. Instead of pondering the ideal source of ginger (dried, crystalized, or fresh), why not use them all? Why not indeed. Ginger has long been considered a good way to whet the appetite. So why not have these before and after dinner?

Slightly modified from Heidi’s Triple Ginger Cookies
1/2 cup raw sugar
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 cup spelt flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon star anise, finely ground
4 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon garam masala (optional)
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

1 stick unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 cup unsulphured molasses
2/3 cup fine grain natural cane sugar, sifted
1 1/2 tablespoons fresh ginger, peeled and grated
1 large egg, well beaten
1 cup crystallized ginger, minced
2 lemons, zest only

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees making sure the rack is in the bottom 1/3. Grease a cookie sheet with unsalted butter. Line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper. Place the raw sugar in a bowl and set aside.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, star anise, ground ginger, garam masala, and salt with a fork.

Heat the butter in a skillet until just barely melted. Stir in the molasses, cane sugar, and fresh ginger. The mixture should be warm, but not hot at this point. If it’s hot to the touch let it cool. Whisk in the egg. Pour this over the flour mixture, add the crystallized ginger (make sure it’s finely minced), and lemon zest. Stir until just combined. I find if you put the dough in the fridge for at least 45 minutes before making into balls, they bake much better in the oven.

Heidi likes them tiny, but I prefer the cookies larger so they have a nice moist center. So I scoop them out by the spoonful and roll them into a ball. Then take a small handful of raw sugar and roll around the ball until it’s evenly coated. Place the cookies two inches apart on the greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes or until cookies puff up, darken, and crack in the center.

CANDY. Yes it’s totally bad for you, addictive even, spikes your blood sugar, gives you diabetes, and has little other nutritional value. It makes for excellent stained glass when melted inside gingerbread cookies. My mother figured out this trick when we were kids, and we’ve been making them every year since.

Decorating the Christmas tree was a sweet task growing up. Christmas trees should be edible, minus the needles and trunk. We lade its branches with candy canes, cookies, and any other sugary treat that tastes good after being left out for 3 weeks at room temperature.

While we don the Susie Homemaker aprons for our slightly noxious baking spree, we realize, well, it’s fun to do this once a year. Gingerbread is one of my favorites. It’s spicy and used to make miniature edible Gretel houses. What’s not to like? Of course once you add on the finishing string of lights on your tree, these stained glass numbers really shine. This is about as close as I get to a church on Christmas. Ahem.

What’s your favorite Christmas music?
In the past I have avoided holiday music whenever possible. This year we’re making a point of playing it at home. I’m looking for input on favorite Christmas classics. What gets you in the mood?

Also check out the 2009 gingerbread stained glass with homemade peppermint candy!

Gingerbread dough
Makes roughly 40 cookies
2 cups whole wheat
2 cups organic unbleached white flour
1/2 Amaranth (you can substitute more white flour)
1 medium orange, rind removed with a vegetable peeler and ground into specs
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1/2 cup ghee (you can substitute more butter)
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 cup organic cane sugar
5/8 cup molasses
5/8 cup maple syrup
2 eggs

Sift the flours into a large bowl. Mix in the baking soda, salt, and spices with a fork. In a medium bowl, blend together the sugar, butter, molasses, egg and maple syrup with an electric hand mixer. Add in in the orange rind. Add dry ingredients all at once and mix until consistent. Refrigerate in a covered bowl for at least an hour.

Making the cookies
Metal cookie cutters of various sizes
A small rolling pin
Parchment paper
Cookie sheet
Small knife
Chopstick or other pointed utensil
Hammer
Plastic bags
Flour
2 bags worth of sour balls, jolly ranchers, or other hard candy (that you’d want to eat)

Basic instruction
Set the oven rack to the lower 1/3 and turn the oven onto 350.

Separate the candy by color, crush it, and place into small bowls. Flour the dough you need and roll it out to 1/8” on parchment within the cookie sheet. Use cutters that fit inside one another to punch a hole through your larger cookie that can be filled with candy. Poke a hole for hanging. Cook the gingerbread halfway (about 5-6 minutes), remove, recut, and cook again until 2 minutes remaining. Remove and add in the sugar, covering the holes 2/3. Place back in the oven and cook to completion, removing to cool.

Candy technique
Separate the colors and put them in plastic bags. Fold the bags over and crush with a hammer (softly, no muscle needed). Place each in a bowl. Make sure not to mix different brands of candy as they may have different melting points. If you want more control over your colors, make the pieces finer.

Gingerbread technique
Arrange some flour, cutters, rolling pin, parchment, cookie sheet, and a small knife. Cut a piece of parchment and lay it into the cookie sheet. Take out only as much dough as you need. Leave the rest in the fridge to keep as cold as possible. Dust the dough and rolling pin with flour, and lay the dough on the parchment inside the cookie sheet.

Begin rolling out the dough from the inside out, and turning the parchment on the cookie sheet. Continue to roll the dough until it is an even 1/8 inch thick. Cut out the shapes you need and remove the remainder of the dough with the knife. Using the chopstick, poke a hole in the cookie at the top (large enough for a ribbon to go through later).

Ball up the excess, wrap it in parchment paper, and place back in the fridge (but reserve separately from the “new” dough).

Place the cookie sheet in the oven when it’s half done (after 5-6 minutes). Remove. Place the cookie cutters back on the cookie and remove the excess with a knife (it will have expanded). Be careful not to crack the cookie. Re-poke the hole. Put the sheet back in for 2 minutes. Remove and fill the holes with the candy 2/3 the way up. Place back in the oven for 2-4 minutes. The first time you do it, watch for the sugar’s melting point. You want it to be even like glass but not bubble over.

Remove the cookies and let cool enough to handle. Turn over and peel away from the parchment. Set on a drying rack to cool completely. Refine your process and repeat.

Notes: Sour balls or other slightly opaque candy works best for stained glass because it is the most saturated. However, don’t buy anything you wouldn’t want to eat. That is, if you plan on eating them. More traditional candy usually works better.

It’s good to do a test run with these cookies by making one cookie the whole process through before doing an entire batch. Gingerbread at 1/8 inch usually cooks within 10 minutes. You want to place the candy in only a couple minutes before the gingerbread is done.

When assembling a batch, try to make sure your cookies (and sugar holes) are of relative size so they will cook evenly.

Ideas: Once you get the hang of it, you can do a bunch of fun things with these. You can layer the cookies so you have multiple layers of candy and cookie. You can use one color sugar or multiple, and swirl them together like stained glass. Sometimes simple is also best.

A swirl made by using a piece of folded tinfoil as a guide.

Drying on the rack.

Two-part cookie with star.

Stars.