Another participant in our Christmas competition – Evelina Marinova. Here’s what she wrote: 

These ‘stained glass’ cookies look terrific but are actually quite simple to make (isn’t it always so?) Just buy some hard candy (without filling), put them in a bag (or towel, etc.) and crush them with a steak mallet (or anything that comes handy). The finer the pieces, the smoother your ‘stained glass’ will be. This is especially true of the mint candy that is harder to melt. I asked my friend Anna‘s permission to post her gingerbread cookie recipe:

You will need:

200g honey
130g brown sugar
1 ts rum
100g butter, softened
1 egg
500g white flour
1g baking powder
1 tbsp spice mix (cinammon, ginger, nutmeg)
Preheat the oven to 170 grades. Heat the honey and brown sugar to melt. Cool down and transfer to a deep bowl. Add the rum, the egg and the butter. Whisk together with an electric mixer until slightly frothy. Put the flour into a different bowl. Make a little well and put the baking powder and the spice mix in it. Mix well and sift into the other bowl. Whisk together with the electric mixer and then knead by hand. Refrigerate for at least 2 hours. Roll onto baking paper to a thickness of around 0.5 mm and cut out the desired shapes. Then cut smaller shapes from the middle of your cookies (with cookie cutters or a sharp knife). Transfer the baking paper with the cookies on a baking sheet and add the crushed candy in each opening. Bake until the cookies are slightly golden. Leave them to cool on the baking sheet, or the candy may spill.
That’s it! Your stained glass cookies can be hung wherever you wish – or simply gobbled up!