- 4 Cups All Purpose Flour
- 4 Sticks Unsalted Softened Butter
- 2 teaspoon Kosher Diamond salt
- Star cookie cutters (We used 4" and 3")
- Colored Candy (we recommend Jolly Ranchers for the most vibrant flavors)
- 1 Cup Sugar
Unwrap the candy and place them in zipper bags by color. Use a rolling pin to smash the into candy bits. You don't want them to be super crushed so they are powdery. They should be the size of tiny crystals. Refer to the photo or videos in this post to get a gauge on size. Cream the butter and sugar together using a stand mixer or hand mixer on medium to high speed until fluffy, about 5-6 minutes. Scrape the bowl in between mixing. Add flour and salt in a bowl and whisk. Add to the butter and sugar mixture and beat on low speed until a soft ball of dough forms. Portion the dough into into two balls and place each ball under two pieces of parchment paper to prep for rolling out. Using parchment is a trick to keep the dough from sticking without using flour!Using a rolling pin, roll out to about ⅜ inches width. Place parchment with dough on a baking pan and place in the refrigerator to chill for 15-20 minutes before cutting. Repeat with the other ball of dough. While the cookies are chilling this is a good time to preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Remove the pan from the refrigerator and cut out using your large star c0okie cutter and placing the smaller one in the center of the large. Remove the star shape with the center cut out and place on another parchment lined baking pan 2" apart to get ready for baking. Since our cookies were on the larger size we placed 6 cookies per pan. Fill the center of the stars with the crushed candies per color. Make sure to add an even layer filling in the center so there are no holes. Place the pan in the refrigerator to keep the cookies chilled while you work on cutting out more dough. Place one pan in a preheated 350 degree oven for around 15 minutes, rotating pan in between baking. Remove when the edges turn barely brown. The center will look bubbly but as soon as you remove the pan the candy will start to harden. Let the cookies cool on the plan for at least 10 minutes before removing to cool further. The candy center should be hard and set. Repeat with the other remaining cookies. Note: Re-roll your dough scraps to make more cookies. For the inner stars, you can bake those up just as they are! They will require less baking time since they are smaller, about 10 minutes total. Step Two: Prepare the Cookie DoughStep Three: Start Shaping the DoughStep Four: Cut out CookiesStep Five: Place Candy in the Cookies Step Six: Bake the Cookies
