When I started thinking about doing raindrop cookies for this April Showers cookie set, I wanted to do a unique shiny raindrop cookie. I remembered some Christmas cookies I saw in December that used melted hard candies to fill in cookie dough that had a seasonal cut-out shape. Bam......my raindrop cookie was born.

Even though there's not technically any glaze decorating on this cookie, it IS dressed up with a beautiful stained glass style.

From what I've read, the best hard candy to melt into your cookie design is Jolly Ranchers. And the blue raspberry color is PERFECT for raindrops. :)

The "hardest" part of this process is crushing the candies. But actually it's kind of fun to beat the candies into tiny slivers that melt easily in a preheated oven. I used a meat tenderizer to crush up the candies. (The reason the photo shows all the colors is because I attempted a rainbow cookie too.....and it wasn't photo worthy.)

For the cookie part, use a large tear drop cutter and then a corresponding smaller tear drop cutter to cut out the center of each raindrop cookie. (see photo below)

Bake the plain empty cookies for 10 minutes.
Immediately take them out of the oven and fill in each middle space with some crushed blue hard candies.
Place the cookies back in the oven to bake the final 6-10 minutes.
The candies will melt into a beautiful glass like layer.

Allow the finished product to cool off before moving to a parchment paper. The candy portion will be somewhat sticky for a while, so keep parchment paper under it until it has dried out well.