It’s the Halloween season and many of us are decorating a little early to kick off a very different-looking holiday. Whether you have children in the home or just you want something fun – and a little bit different – to do this Halloween, we have an activity for you to try!
This year, we created a chocolate cookie Halloween house for children (or adults) to decorate. The key difference in our house is the windows are made of hard candy, giving them a stained-glass effect to add a pretty and spooky look.
We are going to admit in advance, this idea came from The Great British Bake Off. One of the contestants made a gingerbread creation with windows made from hard candy. The sugar in the candy melts down and sticks to the gingerbread cookie during baking.
While it’s fun to watch a show and say things like “I can do that” it’s quite another thing to actually do it. That’s why, in our easy version of this difficult bake, we used a box haunted Halloween house set from Trader Joe’s, then added our own flair with the stained glass windows.
So, here is the activity:
Spooky Stained Glass for Your Cookie Haunted House
(As you will see, the “stained glass” can be adapted for many other bakes including a cookie graveyard or even just a unique candy treat.)
You will need:
- Hard Candy
- Clean Tube-Wringer (we used the 404 Heavy Duty model)
- Baking sheet
- Baking paper
Instructions:
1. Preheat the oven to 350° F
2. Prepare your baking sheet by placing baking paper over the top of it.
3. Crush the hard candy over your baking paper with your Tube-Wringer. This can be done with the candy still inside its packaging, to keep things clean. Just crush and then open the plastic wrapping.
4. Position the fragments in your desired shape or shake the pieces out into a thin square of crushed candy. 
5. Cook the candy until it melts – about 12 minutes.
6. Let the candy cool. Don’t touch it until it is completely cooled.
7. Break the candy into a spooky stained glass window shape and use icing to attach to your prepackaged cookie. Alternatively, you can cut out squares in the cookie and ice the windows over them.
8. Use the leftover melted candy as a path, spooky gravestones, broken pieces of shingle, or just eat them!
The above instructions include photos and video to demonstrate the steps of this process. It’s simple and fun, and you can make this process more complicated by using this crushed candy to melt windows into your cookie dough as you cook. However, there is no need to be an accomplished baker to create this extra spooky haunted house!
Wishing you delight this Halloween!