I just made some stained glass a couple of days ago to use for windows in a gingerbread church. Here's how I did it.
Make the rock candy using the recipe on franksattic.com. Add 1/4 teaspoon of lemon juice to the recipe to prevent crystallization. (A trick I learned from Cooks Illustrated magazine for making the caramel for flan.). Make half a recipe for each color and add the food coloring after removing pan from the heat. Pour the candy onto a cookie sheet line with a Silpat-a teflon liner, available online or at higher end kitchen stores. I think Aluminum foil or parchment paper might work, but I haven't tried it. Waxed paper definitely doesn't work. The Silpat is really nice because nothing sticks to it. Tip the pan until the molten candy spreads out about 1/8 or 1/4 inch or so. After the candy hardens, put it in a ziplock bag and pounded it into tiny pieces. Put the pieces in a mesh strainer to remove powdery residue from the pounding. Put the gingerbread piece inside down on a cookie sheet lined with the Slippat. Take the red, yellow, and blue small pebble size pieces and fill in the window area.Place baking sheet in a 200 degree oven. After about 3 minutes touch the surface of the candy check to see if the candy is getting soft. You want to have the pieces soft enough to adhere to each other and flatten together, but not so much so that the colors start running together. When the candy is the right consistency, press on it with your finger to flatten. I didn't get the surface completely flat since, I liked the look better when it was somewhat rough. You can practice the technique first by doing it on some pebbles bunched together on the cookie sheet. That way you can figure out what size pebbles look best, how much pressure to apply and how warm the candy needs to be. You don't need to take the candy out of the oven to work with it.- the oven isn't that hot.
I'm not planning on using any inside lighting so I'm going to put some royal icing on the back of the glass since I've noticed that a white background makes the colors show up better.
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