Name: Glass Cookies
Ingredients: 115 g unsalted butter, softened; 100 g granulated sugar; 1 egg yolk; 1 tsp vanilla extract; ½ tsp almond extract (optional, but SO good); 190 g all-purpose flour; 15 g cornstarch; ¼ tsp salt; 100–150 g transparent hard candies

Steps

1. Make The Dough

Beat the softened butter and sugar for about 1–2 minutes, until creamy and slightly fluffy.
Beat in the egg yolk, vanilla and almond extract.
In another bowl, mix flour, cornstarch and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture and mix just until a dough forms.
If it looks crumbly at first, keep gently bringing it together with your hands rather than adding liquid.
Flatten into a disc, wrap, and refrigerate 30 minutes.

2. Roll It Out

Roll the dough between two sheets of baking paper to approximately:
5 mm thick
This is a little thicker than I'd normally make a delicate sugar cookie because the cookie needs enough structure to hold its candy window.
Refrigerate the rolled dough for another 20–30 minutes.
Cold dough = ✨CRISP SPOOKY SHAPES✨.

3. Cut Your Halloween Shapes

Cut out pumpkins, ghosts, bats, cats, tombstones, circles, stars—whatever chaos we're feeling.
Then use a smaller cutter or little knife to remove the middle section where you want your glass.
For example:
Pumpkin: pumpkin outline → cut a big central opening
Ghost: ghost outline → oval opening in belly
Bat: bat outline → central body/window
Haunted house: cut tiny windows
Circle: cut pumpkin/bat/ghost shapes inside the circle
Leave at least 7–10 mm of cookie dough around the glass whenever possible. Skinny cookie bridges are prone to snapping.
Put them onto a baking-paper-lined tray.
Then—and this is important—
FREEZE THEM FOR 10–15 MINUTES. ❄️
This helps preserve those beautiful cut edges.

4. First Bake — Without Candy

Bake the cold cookies for:
5–6 minutes at 170°C
We DON'T want them finished yet.
We just want the dough beginning to set.
Take the tray out.

5. Make The Glass

Carefully spoon your crushed candy into each opening.
You want a layer approximately 2–3 mm deep.
Push the candy toward all the edges and corners with a toothpick.
Don't mound it like a tiny candy mountain. Too much candy makes an unnecessarily thick glass center and can bubble over the cookie.

6. Second Bake

Return them to the oven for another:
5–7 minutes
WATCH THE GLASS.
You're looking for the candy to become completely melted and smooth.
The cookie edges should only be very lightly golden.
Once the candy has melted, they're DONE.
Don't keep baking because you're waiting for every tiny bubble to disappear—they often settle as the candy cools.

7. Do. Not. Touch.

Leave the cookies completely flat on the baking sheet for 15–20 minutes.
The candy centers will initially be molten lava.
As they cool they'll turn into actual hard, shiny glass.
Only peel them from the baking paper once they're completely solid.

Nutrition Facts

Glass Cookies

Ingredients