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Grinch heart cookies are a fun and festive holiday treat. So the Grinch himself might not be the most ‘festive’ soul at heart (far from it!) but these red and green Christmas cookies are so cute! And Grinch cookies with a heart shaped stained glass window are perfect for Christmas.

Grinch Window Heart Cookies. Photo credit: xoxoBella.

These green and red cookies are ridiculously cute!! Make these at Christmas and any Grinch fans will recognize them in a split second!

For more delicious festive treats, consider pink peppermint jello shots or stained glass Christmas cookies. Why not make yourself a cute mistletoe headband?

Have you made Whoville cookies before? Whether you have or not, it’s simple to put green stained glass heart Christmas cookies together and come up with a result worthy of being showcased in a bakery window.

The heart shaped stained glass window in these Grinch heart cookies is made with crushed hard candy. This fun take on Whoville cookies might look tricky to make but once you know how to made red and green Christmas cookies like this with a stained glass look you’ll want to make these every year!

Ingredients for Grinch Cookies

These red and green Christmas cookies call for flour, sugar, butter, and eggs, as the usual suspects. You also need salt, vanilla, food colouring, and hard candies. There are very few ingredients you need to make Grinch inspired Whoville cookies so you probably have most already.

Although Jolly Ranchers work perfectly for green stained glass heart cookies, you can sub any hard candies you prefer. As for the food colouring, I like to use gel-based food colouring because the green colour comes out more vivid.

How to Make Grinch Heart Cookies

After mixing together the butter, sugar and salt you can mix in the eggs and vanilla. Add the flour and some food colouring. Chill the dough for a couple of hours then roll it out.

You will need a pair of cookie cutters – one to cut out the Grinch heart cookies and the other to cut out the heart shaped stained glass window. Put the crushed hard candies in the window cut-out then bake them. Once the candy filling has melted you can let the cookies sit until set!

5 Top Tips for Perfect Grinch Cookies

It’s important to chill the dough before cutting out the cookies. If you don’t they are likely to spread out on the baking sheet during baking and then they won’t come out uniformly round and the heart shaped stained glass window won’t be heart shaped! If the dough is still very soft after rolling it out you can roll it out then chill it that way for an hour or so before cutting out the cookies.
Because the cookies rise a little in the oven, you might like to bake them for a few minutes before adding the crushed hard candies. This is an especially good idea if you’re making the cut-out quite small.

You can frost these green stained glass heart Christmas cookies if you want or add sanding sugar or any other festive decorations you want.
Crush the candies in a Ziploc bag using a rolling pin or mallet or else toss them in the food processor (which is quicker and easier!)
Store the finished Grinch cookies in an airtight container with wax paper between the layers for a week or so. Don’t have them anywhere warm or humid else the ‘glass’ filling will get tacky.

Although these are perfect for Christmas because of the Grinch theme, you can also play around with the shape and colours. Try these gluten free windowpane cookies which are also festive-looking or use another cookie cutter shape. Something festive like a bell, Christmas tree or bauble would work too.

Whatever shapes and colours you want to make yours, I recommend you crush your hard candies as finely as possible for the best results. Whether you go with Jolly Ranchers or try hard Life Savers or even Christmas candy canes, get them nice and finely crushed.

Can You Hang These Up?

Yes, absolutely! If you want to hang a few of these Grinch heart cookies on the tree, you can. Cut a hole in the dough before baking using a plastic straw and then thread ribbon through the hole once the cookies have completely cooled.

If you are a fan of these Grinch cookies, you might also like Crinkle Grinch Cookies – Easy Cake Mix Cookies, Very Merry Melon Grinch Green Cocktail or Cranberry & Pistachio White Chocolate Bark.

Grinch Heart Cookies Recipe

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5 from 8 votes

Grinch Heart Cookies – Stained Glass Window

By: Bella Bucchiotti

Grinch heart cookies are a festive holiday treat. These red and green Christmas cookies are so cute! And Grinch cookies with a heart shaped stained glass window are perfect for Christmas.

Prep Time: 30

Cook Time: 10

Total Time: 40

Servings:

Ingredients

▢ 3/4 Cup unsalted butter, room temperature
▢ 3/4 Cup granulated sugar
▢ 1/4 Teaspoon sea salt
▢ 2 eggs, room temperature and beaten
▢ 1 1/2 Teaspoon vanilla extract
▢ food colouring , gel, Leaf Green colour
▢ 2 3/4 Cup all-purpose flour, divided
▢ 2 Cup hard candies, Jolly Ranchers, crushed into small chunks

Instructions

Using a stand mixer and paddle attachment cream together softened butter, granulated sugar, and sea salt until smooth and creamy (about 3 minutes). Scrape down sides as needed and continue to mix.
Add in beaten eggs and vanilla and mix until combined (about 1 minute or so).
Gradually add in the flour (2 ½ cups) and mix on medium-low until well combined. As you are adding in the flour, add a few drops of food coloring until you get the desired shade of green.
Tightly wrap your dough ball in plastic wrap and chill for at least 2 hours. You can separate it into 2 balls if you prefer to work with smaller batches.
Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F and prepare a cookie sheet with parchment paper.
Take your dough out of the fridge.
Use some of the extra ¼ cup of flour to sprinkle on a clean countertop and turn the dough out onto it.
Sprinkle the dough ball with flour and use a rolling pin to roll the dough out to about ¼ inch thick. Use more of the extra flour as needed to keep the dough from sticking to the counter or rolling.
Use a large cookie cutter to cut out “panes” of cookie dough and transfer them to the prepared cookie sheet.
Use a smaller cookie cutter out of the panes and remove them, adding them to the extra dough that you will roll out for more cookies or use them for smaller mini cookies.
Place crushed hard candies in the cutout of the cookie dough panes. You want to fill it nearly full with the hard candy crumbs and be sure it is in an even layer, not mounded in the center.
Bake for 10 to 12 minutes or until the edges of the cookies just begin to brown and the candies are completely melted.
Remove from the oven and allow to cool completely on the baking sheet before removing.

Nutrition

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If you have any cookie dough left over it freezes well for up to 3 months. You can then thaw it out and use it to make red and green Christmas cookies or in fact any kind of cookies you want.

If you still have it by Valentine’s Day you can make heart-shaped cookies! If you already dyed it green just save it for St Patrick’s Day baking!

Bella Bucchiotti

Bella Bucchiotti is a Canadian-based syndicated food, travel, and lifestyle writer, photographer, and creator at xoxoBella. She founded xoxoBella in 2015, where she shares her love for food, dogs, sustainability, fitness, crafts, outdoor adventures, travel, and philanthropy to encourage others to run the extra mile, try new recipes, visit unfamiliar places, and stand for a cause. Bella creates stress-free and family-friendly recipes for weeknight dinners and festive feasts.

5 from 8 votes (2 ratings without comment)