Stained Glass Christmas Biscuits With Raspberry Drops

Makes about 24. Prep 30 minutes plus 1 hour chilling. Cook 11 to 12 minutes.

1. Beat the butter and sugar until pale and light, about 3 minutes.
2. Beat in the egg and vanilla until smooth.
3. Fold in the flour and salt until the dough just comes together, and stop there.
4. Flatten the dough into two discs, wrap them and chill for 1 hour.
5. Heat the oven to 170 degrees, or 150 fan, and line two trays with baking paper.
6. Crush each colour separately inside a sealed bag with a rolling pin, to coarse crumbs.
7. Roll one disc out to 5mm thick between two sheets of baking paper.
8. Cut out your shapes, then stamp a smaller shape out of the middle of each one.
9. Lift the biscuits onto the trays with a palette knife, 3cm apart.
10. Make a skewer hole near the top edge of any biscuit you plan to hang.
11. Spoon crushed lolly into each window until it is level with the dough, and no higher.
12. Bake for 11 to 12 minutes, until the edges are pale gold and the windows have melted flat.
13. Leave them on the tray until completely cold, then lift them off the paper.
14. Thread the ribbon through the holes once the sugar is fully set.

Why a clear boiled lolly

The window only works if the sweet is a clear, single colour hard boiled lolly. Raspberry drops are sugar, glucose, citric acid, flavour and colour, exactly the composition that melts into a flat pane and sets clear as it cools. Anything with milk solids, fat or a cream swirl stays cloudy, which is why the strawberries and cream sweets are on the list for the bowl rather than the biscuit.

Crush to crumbs, not shards. Large pieces melt unevenly and leave gaps in the pane, and a shard that lands on the dough will burn where it sits. Filling level with the dough is the other rule: overfilled windows bubble over and weld the biscuit to the tray.

These are hand made at Brown's Confectionery Factory at Sovereign Hill, which is the subject of how boiled lollies are made by hand. The rest of the range sits on the Sovereign Hill page, under confectionery.

Making them with children

Split the job. The dough, the rolling and the oven are adult work. The crushing, the cutting out and the spooning of lolly into windows are the parts that are actually fun. Give each child their own bag of one colour to smash, which settles the argument over who gets red. Crushing works better on a tea towel on the floor than on a bench.

Once cold, keep them in an airtight tin with baking paper between the layers, where they hold for about five days. Humidity finishes them: the window goes tacky in a wet week. Children's Christmas food has more to bake before the day, and the biscuits shelf covers what to buy if the afternoon gets away from you.

Common questions

How do you stop stained glass biscuits sticking to the tray?

Bake them on baking paper, always, and never on a greased or bare tray. Molten sugar bonds to metal as it cools and the only way off is to break the biscuit. The second rule is patience: leave them on the tray until completely cold, because the window is liquid out of the oven and stays soft for several minutes. Lift one early and the pane tears out of the middle. If a window has leaked over the edge, run a thin palette knife under the whole biscuit once it is cold.

Which lollies melt best for stained glass biscuits?

Clear, single colour hard boiled sweets. Raspberry drops give a deep red, acid drops yellow and green, barley sugar amber, and all three are sugar and glucose based with nothing in them to cloud the melt. Avoid anything with a cream or milk component, anything chewy and anything with a soft centre, because none of them go clear. Crushed to coarse crumbs, one large sweet fills a window about 3cm across.

Can stained glass biscuits be hung on a tree?

Yes, as long as the hole is made before they go in the oven, not after. Punch through the dough with a skewer about 1cm in from the top edge, and check the hole is still open when the biscuit comes out, since the dough spreads a little. Thread thin ribbon through once they are cold. A hanging biscuit softens after two or three warm days, so hang them late if the tree is up early.