Mighty Delighty: Candy Filled Easter Egg Cookies

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If you read {{this post}} from last week then you know how certain ideas can gnaw away at my mind incessantly. The idea of a cookie filled with candy has intrigued me since peeking at these candy filled pinata cookies and as I've mentioned before I have been anxious to make my own version.

But with two kidoddles constantly underfoot and another snuggled up close to me in his baby wrap; it becomes a challenge to pull these ideas from the dusty, cluttered folds of my mind to find a fistful of minutes to string together in order to create. But when I do, ultimately I am able to quiet the constant ramblings inside my head...until the next idea comes forth.

These candy filled Easter egg cookies were actually the first version of these cookies I made, even before I made the Pot of Gold version for St. Patrick's day. That idea was born as I was working on these and since St. Patty's day comes before Easter, I decided to post that one first.

Before I start telling you how I made them I need to insert a small bit of information here. Typically when I make decorated sugar cookies I use Royal Icing to decorate them. I also use Royal Icing when I make sugar toppers for cupcakes like these or these..

But I get a lot of emails asking me about Royal icing; what it is, how to make it, where to buy it and sometimes complaints about it. I personally love using it and working with it, as I find it to be unlimited in it's creative possibilities, but lets be real for a moment.

Preparation, coloring and discovering the proper consistency can be a bit time consuming. Even I find it annoyingly time consuming. So I have a solution.....for me and for you, for right now. Because as much as I love it, finding the time to prepare it is next to impossible right now and that is a sharp pin popping my balloon of creativity at this moment of time.

But I found alternative that can suffice for the time being. Betty Crocker Cookie Icing, you can find it at most grocery stores.

It is not Royal Icing, so it's not for fine detail, it's has more of a glaze consistency and never dries as hard as Royal Icing does. But for easy to do quickie decorating it totally works. It colors very easily and even comes in a few colors and the consistency is perfect for outlining, filling and a bit of detail work as long as it's not so intricate. Its a great alternative a pinch

Now moving on.These cookie were made using an amazing vanilla sugar cookie recipe from LilaLoa.com. As I have mentioned before these are my absolute favorite Vanilla Sugar Cookie as of the moment. If your up to making the dough try her recipe. But if your not feeling that adventurous, go buy some sugar cookie dough at the store, although they most likely won't hold there shape so perfectly after baking.

This is what you will need...

Egg Shaped Cookie Cutter or hand cut them.
Sugar Cookies
Royal Icing or Betty Crocker Cookie Icing
Colored chocolate melts (You could just use this to decorate if you wanted)
Gel food coloring to color you icing.
Decorating Bags or small plastic baggies
Decorating tips
Miniature candies to fill cookies with.
Wax Paper

Roll out your sugar cookie dough and cut out your shapes using the egg cookie cutters. Each cookie is comprised of three parts, so make sure you cut enough cookies out of the dough to be able to assemble them at a later time. Keep one whole, cut a small hole in another (using whatever works.)

Bake the cookie according to recipe directions and allow them to fully cool, before you move onto the next steps. After they are fully cooled you can get ready to assemble them. First I decorated the the tops of the cookies using the cookie icing. I colored the icing I was using a very light pink color. Pipe a nice line around the cookie and let it set.

Do this for every cookie and by the time you finish you can go back and fill in each cookie.You will need to let these sit and dry for a bit before adding in the additional details on top of the cookie.

After they have formed a nice crust on top, if you want to decorate it more you can do so. I used white icing and made a few designs on top of the cookie, to make it a bit more interesting. I started with a zig...

and added a little zag....

And finished it off with some curve lines and dots. Add what you wish here..use your imagination :)

I let the decorated tops dry overnight, but I'm sure a few hours would suffice it you need them in a pinch.
To put the entire cookie together, get the rest of the pieces and begin assembling them. I used white chocolate candy melts to attach the pieces, because I knew it would dry hard and keep it all together. I just added a bit to the bottom part of the middle layer cookie.

And attached it to the bottom piece.

Let it set up and then the fun begins as you can now fill it with candies! Just don't overfill it as you won't be able to attach the top. I used these fun pastel colored hard candies, that my kids call marbles.