My social media feeds in early December were rammed with Christmas baking ideas, but none grabbed me as much as the trend for snow globe cookies. Many of us will have attempted stained glass window biscuits at some point. There is true magic and delight in watching as a sprinkle of crushed candies melts into the cut out centre with dazzling results. I’m sure I sent my parents mad with my baking experiments as a child, bashing Fox’s fruits into smithereens with a rolling pin, sending shards flying across the room.
These little beauties take things one step further. You sandwich together two glass window biscuits with icing, and fill the centre with sprinkles. Once set, shake them and, like a snow globe, the sprinkles will move around – small pleasures.
Snow globe cookies
(makes 8-10)
Ingredients
100g unsalted butter, cut into 1cm cubes
100g golden caster sugar
1 egg yolk with 2tsps water
1.5tsps vanilla extract
200g plain white flour
Pinch salt
To fill/decorate:
200g royal icing made to packet instructions into a thick paste with water
100g clear sweets (I used glacier mints) crushed
Sprinkles of your choice
1 10cm and 1 5cm to 7cm round cookie cutter – fluted or plain
Method
Combine all the cookie ingredients in a food processor and blitz until a dough comes together – you may have to add a touch of water.
When the dough combines, bring it together into a ball, flatten slightly and wrap. Chill for 30 minutes.
Pre-heat the oven to 180C and line two baking sheets.
On a lightly floured surface roll the dough out to about the thickness of a £1 coin. Cut out circles with the larger cutter and use the smaller cutter to cut out the centre. Set these carefully on your trays leaving a 2cm gap between them and re-roll and cut the remaining dough.
Sprinkle a thin layer of the crushed sweets into the centre hole of each biscuit – it needs to entirely cover the circle.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes until golden at the edges and allow to cool on the trays.
Separate the biscuits into two batches. On one batch pipe decoratively with some of your icing on the biscuit part. Flip over the other batch so you have the flat surface of the melted sweets. Pipe a thick ring of icing around the outside of the melted sweet centre – you may have to pipe two layers.
Carefully place some sprinkles in the centre of the icing and press one of the decorated biscuits on top gently. This will seal in the sprinkles for a snow globe effect. Allow to dry then enjoy the pleasure of shaking (and eating) your cookies.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here