Vanilla Sugar Cookies

1. Preheat the oven to 350˚F.
   

2. In the bowl of your mixer, cream butter and sugar until smooth, at lest 3 minutes.

3. Beat in Vanilla Moroni and egg.

4. In a separate bowl, combine baking powder and salt with flour and add a little at a time to the wet ingredients. The dough will be very stiff. If it becomes too stiff for your mixer, turn out the dough on a countertop surface. Wet your hands and finish off kneading the dough by hand.

5. Do not chill the dough. Separate into workable batches, roll out onto a lightly floured surface or roll out in between two sheets of parchment to avoid adding flour and cut with desired cookie cutter. You will want these cookies to be on the thicker side (closer to ¼ inch instead of ⅛).

6. Bake at 350˚F for for 6-8 minutes. Let cool on the cookie sheet until firm enough to transfer to a cooling rack.

Flavored Meringue Buttercream

1. Place meringue powder, sugar and salt in a mixer bowl and mix until well blended.

2. Pour boiling water into mixer bowl to dissolve sugar granules and whisk mixture on low medium speed for 1 minute.

3. Increase speed to high and whip until the meringue is fluffy with glossy peaks. Continue to whip until meringue mixture has cooled completely.

4. Gradually add the butter one cube at a time with the mixer on medium speed. 

5. Once all the butter has been added, add the Dreidoppel flavor pastes. Continue to whip buttercream on high until it all comes together and it looks smooth and fluffy. The buttercream should be thick, creamy and glossy. See recipe notes for more details.

6. When you are ready to decorate your sugar cookies, pipe the flavored buttercream on with a star pastry tip.