Prep
In a medium bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt until it is thoroughly combined. Set aside.
In a separate large bowl, cream the butter and the sugar on medium speed until the color of the mixture lightens to a pale yellow and is soft, but not overly fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla extract into the butter/sugar mixture and mix on low speed until the mixture is combined and smooth.
Tip: Use room temp eggs and butter to help everything mix together nicely.
Add the dry ingredients into the wet mixture and mix on low speed until the flour is mostly absorbed and the dough begins to come together. Do not overmix the dough as it can toughen the final product.
Divide the dough, if needed, flatten into a rectangle and wrap in plastic. Place the dough in the refrigerator for at least 3 hours or up to 2 days.
Bake
When you are ready to bake, take the dough out of the refrigerator and preheat your oven to 350* F.
Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface to the thickness of about ¼” or a little less. When rolling the dough, remember to turn the dough a quarter turn each time. Turning helps keep the dough in a rectangular shape and also helps gauge if the dough is sticking to the table. If the dough is sticking, gently move your dough to the side, lightly flour the table, rolling pin, and/or dough, and then continue rolling.
Once the desired thickness has been achieved, grab whatever cookie cutters suit the occasion, give them a light flouring, and cut out your cookies. Gather the remaining dough into a single piece and repeat the process until you’ve used it all up.
Place the cookies onto a parchment-lined sheet pan, spacing them about 2” apart. If you want to simply decorate them with colored sugar, this would be the time to sprinkle it on.
Bake the cookies for 8–12 minutes or until the edges of the cookies are faintly golden brown.
Let them cool on the pan before moving them onto a cooling rack. If you are planning on decorating the cookies with Royal Icing, make sure they’re cooled completely.
Decorate
Ever wonder what the hard, colorful icing is on decorated cookies? It’s called Royal Icing–a mixture of powdered sugar and egg whites that is pipeable, but cures hard. It requires some patience to decorate cookies with Royal Icing, allowing one color to dry before adding the next on top of it. But, with a creative and steady hand, these cookies are well worth the appreciation.
Note: The icing can be made in advance, stored in the fridge in sealed bags.
Royal Icing
Combine the ingredients in a mixing bowl and beat until stiff peaks form and the mixture has a sheen to it. This can take 7–15 min depending on your mixer.
Divide the mixture by the number of colors you would like to make.
Mix food coloring into individual portions of icing until the desired color has been achieved. This is the consistency you want for piping. Place into a piping bag or plastic zip bag and seal.
To create icing for flooding/filling, take your piping-consistency icing (or half of it if you’d like some of the same color for both uses) and add 1 teaspoon of water at a time, mixing until the trails that are left when mixing begin to smooth out in 15-20 seconds. Place into a piping bag or plastic zip bag and seal.
