A while ago my friend Diana over at Fiction Food Cafe posted the most lovely mirror-shaped candy glass cookies: Stealing Snow Hand Mirror Cookies. They were so beautiful and cleverly designed, and it took me about two seconds to message her screaming, “THOSE WOULD MAKE THE BEST SAILOR DEEP AQUA MIRROR COOKIES!”
Diana is a fellow Sailor Moon fan and always a step ahead, so she had already had the same thought. I got her blessing to remake her recipe into Sailor Neptune’s lovely talisman, and here we are!
DEEP AQUA MIRROR COOKIES
INGREDIENTS (Adapted from Fiction Food Cafe)
150g (3/4 cup) butter, room temperature
200g (1 cup) sugar
1 egg, room temperature
Flavorings of choice (I went with a pinch of nutmeg, the zest of half a lemon and a splash of vanilla extract)
280g (2 1/4 cups) flour, plus more for dusting
1 tsp. Baking Powder
1/2 tsp. Salt
2 cups crushed blue and green hard candies in a 2:1 blue:green ratio (Jolly Ranchers work well)
Yellow royal icing, stiff peaks
Gold Luster Dust
Clear Almond Extract
Yellow marzipan or fondant (optional)
DIRECTIONS
1. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add in your egg and flavorings, then mix to combine. Sift together your flour, salt and baking powder and add it to the dough. Mix until it just comes together.
2. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for 2-4 hours, or until firm.
3. Using this image as a template, cut a mirror template out of cardstock. (The mirror should be 5.5″ tall and just under 3″ wide.) Dust your counters with flour and roll your dough out to approximately 1/4-” thickness. Place your cardstock mirror template on the dough and cut out your mirror shape, including the inner oval. Using a spatula or large spatula, carefully transfer the cookies to a parchment or silicone mat lined cookie sheet. Gently push them back into shape them if they warp as you move them. Place any dough scraps in the freezer to chill while you work, then re-roll the scraps and continue cutting out cookies until you run out of dough. Place the cookie sheet in the freezer for 20 minutes to firm up the cookies well.
4. In the meantime, preheat your oven to 350ºF/175ºC. Remove the cookies from the freezer, slide them into the oven and bake for 8-10 minutes, or until lightly browned. If the cookies have spread more than you’d like, use a sharp knife to trim them down a bit while they’re still warm.
5. Put your hard candies in a microwave safe bowl (I recommend a Pyrex measuring cup since it has a pour spout) and microwave, 20 seconds at a time, until liquid. Stir between each microwaving. Now, carefully pour the melted candies into the center of each cookie. Allow the cookies to cool completely.
6. At this point you can either cover the cookies in royal icing as shown below (by piping a firm border and flooding it with runnier royal icing) or with fondant. If using fondant, use a slightly blown up version of the template you used for your cookies as a guide. Adhere the fondant with a tiny bit of water.
7. Place your royal icing in a piping bag fitted with a coupler. Fit your bag with a #1 tip and carefully pipe a series of small dots on the inner rim of the “glass.” If you have used fondant or marzipan to cover your cookies, pipe an outline around the cookies as well. Switch to a #2 tip and use it to carefully pipe the trident shape in the center. Allow the icing to harden for 4-6 hours.
8. In a small bowl, mix gold luster dust with a few drops of almond extract at a time until you achieve a liquid paint consistency. Using a paintbrush, carefully paint the iced parts of the cookie gold. Allow to set for 30 minutes and you’re ready to serve!
These were fun and relatively easy to make, too! I loved how the mirrors looked when the sugar was clear, so even though I backed mine with parchment to make them easier to photograph I recommend leaving them translucent.
I recommend marzipan for this recipe for the best taste, though the royal icing is also good. I added a drop or two of sparkling wine flavor to my royal icing, and I find it really adds something unique! Play around and see what you like best.
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