I'm pretty sure the GBH police are after me for going candy-less this year: GBH 2010

cheezz, Brach's hard candies work best. You can crush them in a ziplock baggie with a rolling pin,

thus venting all of that stored-up frustration while leaving trace amounts of candy all over your kitchen--and attracting every diabetic ant within a 30-mile radius.

OR...you can crush them in a mini food processor. I used a 3:1 ratio of hard butterscotch and red cinnamon. Put into a disposable pastry bag.

To have sharp window edges: Roll out the gingerbread and use an X-acto to score the outline of the window frame. Do not remove the dough. Bake as usual (about 35 minutes for 1/4" thick dough (I use 1/4" dowels to keep the dough even) and as soon as it comes out of the oven, run the X-acto around the window outline again and lift out the baked inside pieces. The edges will stay crisp this way. Transfer the entire baked wall to a Silpat and fill with crushed candy, then slide back into the oven.

I'm not sure what the physical size limit is for a sheet of "candy glass" so I add "panes" to limit the width. I rollout and bake the original on parchment and then transfer to Silpat when re-baking the candy windows so it doesn't stick. It takes about 10 minutes to fully melt the candy. Let sit until it cools and firms up before removing from Silpat. Check for holes and repeat with a bit more candy if there are gaps.

Or...you can cut out the windows before baking and then fill afterward. This will give a softer, curved window look. I'm always worried the dough will spread too much.

You can do this exact method with cookies. In fact, the large window above the door is made from a series of "flower" cookie cutters. In that case, I might use the second method since it won't affect the design as much and it would go faster.

You can also use Jolly Rancher hard candies which have a wider range of colors. However, these melt and run within a few days, while the Brach's stay viable for 2 months at least (or...that's how long I saw my 2007 GBH windows last.) Again, for cookies, it wouldn't matter which candy you use.

Sainte Chapelle is a wonderland of blue stained glass and I would have preferred to use that color scheme, but couldn't find any ready-made hard blue candy and didn't want to attempt making it myself.

 
Wow, Marilyn! IMHO, U are definitely on a par w/ Baccio Pontelli, who designed the Cappella Sistina

not to mention Giovannino de Dolci under whose supervision it was built between 1473 and 1481 for Pope Sixtus IV. And it took them from between 1473 and 1481 to complete the structure, and you cranked your out in a day. I am royally impressed! Thanks for showing us your architectural skills in the culinary department.

 
Do not use caramel! It has to be a "hard" candy. Brach's has two colors in that category:

I've attached images of both of those. Brach's other candies will not work.

You want sugar that has been processed to "hard ball" stage. Any recipe that makes lollipops would work if you wanted to make them from scratch.

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.candyfavorites.com/i/t_132_01.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.candyfavorites.com/Brach-s-Cinnamon-Disks-pr-132.html&usg=__9JRpbg3UtNk59FaLWh1b79A0Yp8=&h=253&w=350&sz=37&hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=C2f9Oip

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.candyfavorites.com/shop/images/graphic_shelf_life.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.candyfavorites.com/shop/shelf-life.php&usg=__hpJFnkFbnvJrbQLuwjguTU-DI9Q=&h=219&w=300&sz=22&hl=en&start=1&zoom=1&um=1&itbs=1&tbnid=GT

 
aw, bummer! Those would have been perfect! My Publix didn't carry them. Now to

fight down the urge to remake the whole thing and add the buttresses, spires and turrets that would have made it impossible to fit in my car.

Where's that duct-tape??

 
They would definitely work, but I have no empirical data on how long they would last.

There was a distinct difference between the Jolly Rogers candy and the Brach's candy.

 
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