Stained Glass Sugar Cookies

Course Dessert

3 cups unbleached all-purpose flour, spooned and leveled, plus more for rolling
¾ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp fine salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 ¼ cups sugar
4 large egg yolks
1 tbsp pure vanilla extract
finely crushed hard candy such as Jolly Rancher, in various colours (1 cup total)

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium-high until light and fluffy, 3 minutes.
Add egg yolks and vanilla and beat to combine.
With mixer on low, gradually add flour mixture and beat to combine.
Form dough into 2 disks, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 350ºF with racks in upper and lower thirds.
Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out dough between floured parchment paper to ⅛ inch thickness.
Stack dough in parchment on a baking sheet; refrigerate until firm, 30 minutes.
With a 2 ½ inch Christmas-ball-shaped cutter or any shape, cut out dough (reroll scraps, if desired).
Place cookies, 1 inch apart, on two parchment-lined baking sheets.
With a 1-inch star cutter, cut out dough in center of each cookie.
Bake until cookies are pale but set, 8 to 10 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through. Remove sheets from oven; fill cutouts with crushed candy.
Bake until cookies begin to brown at edges and candy is melted, 3 minutes. Let cool completely on sheets on wire racks.
Recipe from Martha Stewart’s Cookie Perfection

Disks of dough can be refrigerated overnight or frozen, up to 1 month, and thawed in the refrigerator. Let sit at room temperature until soft enough to roll. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers, up to 1 week.