Have you ever seen shaker cookies before? They’re so much fun!
Each cookie sandwich is filled with candy sprinkles that move and rattle inside melted candy windows. Super cute! It’s a 3D twist on stained glass cookies.
Sound complicated? From scratch using isomalt, maybe, but I found this cookie kit, from Uncommon Goods—one of my favorite online gift shops—and I couldn’t resist buying and trying. (They also have a DIY shaker cookie class experience.)
It was surprisingly easy, but I’ll add some helpful tips based on my experience below.
They turned out really cute, don’t ya think? Especially for my first time! (A decorator, I am not.)
Get the Shaker Cookie Kit here now!
What’s Inside the Shaker Cookie Kit
As mentioned, the kit includes all the shelf-stable ingredients. You’ll just need a stick of butter and one egg to start. Everything is pre-measured and individually packaged, so there’s no need to fuss with measuring cups at all.
How to Make Window Shaker Cookies
There are step-by-step directions with photos included in the kit (thank goodness), but here’s the gist of what I did.
Step One: First, whisk together flour, salt and baking soda in a bowl. Cream butter and sugar in electric mixer, then add vanilla and egg. Add flour mixture using a spatula to form a dough. Divide into two disks, wrap and refrigerate overnight (or freeze for 20 minutes).
Tip: Don’t freeze the dough longer than 20 minutes. I got distracted and left my dough in the freezer too long. It was hard as a rock, so I had to let it sit at room temperature and thaw out before I could work with it. Oops.
Step 2: Sandwich chilled dough between parchment paper sheets and roll to 1/8-inch thickness with a rolling pin. Use a 3.5-inch width water glass to stamp out round cookies. Use the stars and crescents to cut out the cookie centers. You’ll probably need to roll out the dough at least once more to get enough cookies—you need 18. Carefully transfer them to parchment paper-lined baking sheets.
Tip: Try to cut out the centers in the same location in every cookie, so they line up later. I was a little too willy-nilly, so my cookies didn’t line up as neatly as they could have. Oops.
Also, I recommend chilling them before transferring them to baking sheets. I skipped that step and paid for it because the dough shifted and messed up my windows a bit. That was my own fault.
Step 3: Crush the lemon candies as finely as possible—I used my food processor. Bake the cookies for 5 minutes, then carefully fill 12 of them (just 12!) with the crushed candy. Put them back in the oven for 3-4 minutes until the cookies are golden and the candy has bubbled.
Tip: Try to be more careful than I was when adding the crushed candy. I’m so impatient sometimes! Doing it carefully makes it much easier to remove the cookies from the baking sheet after baking. AND you don’t want extra candy anywhere but inside the cutout, because it will stick to the sprinkles and affect the shake, shake, shake.
Step 4: Let the baked cookies cool for 5 minutes, then carefully peel from the parchment paper and let cool completely on a cooling rack.
Step 5: Mix the icing sugar and warm water into a thick paste consistency. Scoop it into the pastry bag. cutting off the tip when you’re ready to pipe. Construct six shaker cookies by using three layers of cookies for each.
Place a cookie with a window upside down. Pipe the outside edge with icing; glue a matching window-less cookie on top. Add some sprinkles, then pipe (and glue) a matching window cookie right-side-up on top. Ice the edges if desired, but don’t let the icing get inside because it will stick to the sprinkles.
Tip: If glass “windows” are cloudy, wipe them clean with a damp paper towel and let dry completely (or freeze 1 minute) before assembling. I didn’t see that tip on the directions at first, so some of mine are a little cloudy. Oops.
Step 6: Decorate the top of the cookies with piped icing and remaining sprinkles. Let dry completely then shake those shaker cookies!
Tip: I think the star shaker cookies are the most impressive because the candy windows are larger, so if I were doing this again, I would make just the stars.
Get your DIY Shaker Cookie Kit Here!
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