Melt candy on the insides of your favorite sugar cookie recipe to make stained glass cookies. (2024)

Make your favorite sugar, gingerbread, chocolate, or other cookie (store-bought or pre-made dough is completely legit here!), drizzle with a 3-ingredient icing recipe like this one from King Arthur Flour, then go crazy with your stamps! The key to making this really work is to use gel food coloring instead of the normal liquid kind (you can find it at most grocery stores or craft stores).

Learn more about the technique and how to make it work at Country Cleaver.

Make the same cookies and icing as you would for the stamp cookies above, but instead of directly stamping gel color onto them, mix up edible cookie paints (McCormick has instructions for creating 19 different colors using liquid food coloring at the bottom of this recipe), and play around with brushing them in your favorite designs.

The cookies pictured above were created by Australian bakery Nectar and Stone for New Zealand's Pop Roc Parties (and omg, they both have beautiful Instagram accounts).

This is so easy it might as well be a required gift to give someone.

Learn how to do it at Our Best Bites.

This is great for anyone who doesn't love frosting and candy toppings, but still wants to try something creative and fun with holiday cookies. You can totally use store-bought dough for this, just let it come close enough to room temperature that it's easy to work with. Then, let them rest in the fridge for at least half an hour after you roll them, so they bake more evenly.

Find the recipe on Sprinkle Bakes.

You can get 20 sheets of gold leaf for $10.30 on Amazon, then embellish festive shapes on your white-iced delectables.

Get the recipe and how-to at Paper 'n' Stitch Blog.

The cute cheeks are pink M&Ms, but could totally be substituted with red ones. If you're not confident in your ability to gently sprinkle the right amount of coconut onto only half of an Oreo, there's no shame in upgrading your base cookie to something larger, like a gingersnap.

Get the full tutorial at A Cultivated Nest.

There are tons of tutorials (and a few fails) for these type of snowman cookies on Pinterest, but I like this version because almost anyone can pull it off: you use pre-made dough (or even store-bought cookies), pre-made icing, and food coloring markers to make the magic happen.

Get the how-to at Listotic.

You can find these delicious chocolate noms in the baking or snack aisles of most grocery stores — because they're already made, the only prep you have to do before decorating is melting the chocolate and potentially crushing the candy canes. This recipe adds matcha to the chocolate so it's green (like Christmas, get it?), but you can stick with white chocolate or use food coloring to make other colors if you prefer.

Get the recipe at Butterlust.

Of course you can use sprinkles or icing or edible glitter or whatever else you want to decorate these!

Get the recipe at The Recipe Rebel.

Then you can add sprinkles, other candy, or drizzles of colorful icing to your heart's content.

Get the recipe and tutorial at Miss CandiQuick.

Of course you could use any kind of candy you wanted, or even the stamping or painting techniques from the top of this post. They're your cookies, make them however you'll love them most!

Get the recipe and how-to at Your Cup of Cake.

You can also stick them into cupcakes. Either way, you have a snowy scene!

Learn how to make them at Just A Taste.

If you have just the smallest bit of piping skill, you can make the six little stars required to ice this cookie.

Get the full tutorial and recipe at Your Cup of Cake.

You'll need both a large round cookie cutter and small cookie cutters in various shapes to make this work, but it's sooo pretty. You can also use crushed peppermint or gummi bears, just make sure to watch the candy melting so it doesn't burn!

Learn how to make them safely at Homegrown and Healthy.

The tutorial suggests hot gluing the graham crackers together (which tbh would be very stable), but of course icing or even some well-placed peanut butter would work if you want to eat 'em.

Get the full how-to at Alice and Lois.

The tutorial for these includes a recipe for these Dark Chocolate Gingersnaps, but you could also use store-bought chocolate wafers or regular gingersnaps. You can find holiday cookie stencils for sale, but it's cheapest to make your own —this Martha Stewart tutorial will show you how to make them.

Get the recipe and see more examples of this technique at White on Rice Couple.

Sometimes there's nothing wrong with taking the easy way out!

Use your favorite recipe, or try these Almond Shortbread Cookies from Lively Mess.

Chop them as finely or as roughly as you like. These are also frosted with super easy 2-ingredient lemon icing.

Get the recipe at XOXO Bella.

If piping that belt looks intimidating, skip it, or use a single strand of Licorice Red Vines and a yellow jelly bean.

Get the recipe and tutorial at Pillsbury.