Tuesdays with Dorie (Baking Chez Moi): Les Petits Chefs make Dorie Greenspan’s Stained Glass Cookies

Any Petits Chefs session that starts out with candies in Ziploc bags and rolling pins to crush them is bound to be popular! This week the boys helped me out with my Tuesdays with Dorie assignment. Actually when I saw that one of this month’s recipes was stained glass cookies (we’re allowed to choose which order we bake them in this month), I knew I wanted to try them with at least one group of boys and since we had a “free” day (i.e. no guests or field trips) this week turned out to be perfect. Also, the boys are always asking about “holiday treats” around about now 😉

I made the cookie dough at lunch as it needed to be frozen for at least an hour. I had it warming up a little as the boys got to work on the candies…

And then we got to cutting our shapes out…

And filling the cutouts with crushed candy…

It’s definitely a job for dexterous little fingers and not one that can be done quickly (so, perfect for slowing excited little boys down in the second last week of school!). Like Dorie suggested, we used piping tips to cut out the holes and fill them with candy dust. It was definitely a challenge – even for me – to keep the candy dust off the rest of the surface of the cookie and some of our cookie dough was a little thin so that was a little hard to work with but the boys managed well, none of their cookies broke even though the dough was delicate and thin.

Dorie does call for the cookies to be glazed with a little egg wash (which we did, though our brushes are not the thinnest so it was hard to wash over the cookie and 1. not break the cookie or 2. not touch the candy. Then the recipe calls for a touch of sugar which, in our rush, I completely forgot…

I’m not sure I’d glaze the cookies next time (unless I was using them for actual decorations) – it was too fiddly and I kind of like the idea of the pale cookie and the sparkling “windows”. But I do think our rustic cookies look lovely, imperfect and all..

And the boys were proud of their work (yes, they identified the ones the made, of course!)…

Definitely a great holiday baking project with your kids (big and small 😉 )

You can find Dorie Greenspan’s recipe for stained glass cookies on page 280 of Baking Chez Moi or here.

 

 

Tuesdays with Dorie participants don’t publish the recipes on our blogs, so you’re encouraged to purchase Baking Chez Moi for yourself which you can do on Amazon (this link should bring you to the Amazon store in your country) or for free worldwide shipping, buy from The Book Depository. Then join us, baking our way through the book!

 

 

 

Please note: The product links from Amazon and The Book Depository are affiliate links, meaning if you click over and purchase something, I will receive a very small percentage of the purchase price which goes towards maintaining eat. live. travel. write. Thank you in advance!