For the Sugar Cookies – whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.  Use your electric mixer to beat the butter and sugar together on high for a couple of minutes until perfectly smooth and creamy.  Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg, vanilla and almond extract and beat again for another minute.  Add in all of the dry ingredients and mix on low until the dough comes together and is well combined.  The dough will be soft but if it seems too sticky to roll then mix in 1 more tablespoon of flour.

Divide the cookie dough into 2 equal parts and on a lightly floured surface (or lightly floured parchment or plastic wrap), roll each portion to an even thickness/round that will fit how and where you plan to refrigerate or freeze it.  I rolled mine fairly thin, but each plastic-wrapped round still fit in a freezer Ziploc.  The perfect thickness for your cookies will eventually be 1/4-inch and I have a rolling pin with measured ends to assist with this.

Cover and wrap each roll-out and either refrigerate (on a flat surface) for a couple of hours, up to a couple of days – or – wrap well and slide into a freezer Ziploc and freeze (on a flat surface) until you have time to bake and decorate your cookies.  You can decide if you want to bake all of the cookies at once, or just take out one round at a time.

When you’re ready to bake, preheat the oven to 350.  You can make cut outs as soon as you can roll the dough to 1/4-inch thickness.  If the dough has been frozen, plan to leave it in the fridge overnight before using, then flour a surface, roll to check the thickness, make cut outs and transfer the shapes to large baking sheets lined with parchment.  Re-roll the dough as needed when making cut outs – it doesn’t seem like a lot of dough, but you can get a lot of cookies if you’re efficient with the scraps!  Bake for 9 to 12 minutes depending on the thickness of your cookies.  They should be set with lightly browned edges.  Leave the baked cookies to rest on a baking sheet for about 5 minutes before carefully removing them to a rake to cool completely before you begin decorating.

For the Royal Icing – pour the icing sugar, meringue powder and 9 tablespoons of water into the bowl of your electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.  Beat on high for 1 1/2 to 2 minutes.  When lifting up the whisk attachment, the icing should drizzle back into the bowl and smooth out in 5 to 10 seconds.  If it’s too thick, beat in more water, 1 tablespoon at a time.  The longer you beat royal icing, the thicker it becomes!  Waverly wanted to note that if you plan to add (any) color, the color needs to be mixed in – so under beat a titch to begin with, then the icing doesn’t/shouldn’t thicken, even slightly, and become more difficult to work with after you add color.  Divide and color as the occasion suits, spoon into squeeze bottles or piping bags and get decorating!  Royal icing usually takes a couple of hours to set completely.

For the Easy Glaze – use a fork to stir together the icing sugar, salt, vanilla and corn syrup with 4 1/2 tablespoons (67 mL) of water in a medium bowl.  It will be crazy thick and almost impossible to stir.  Scrape off the fork as best as you can, switch to a whisk and add another half tablespoon (8 mL) of water.  After whisking, if you lift the whisk and let the icing drizzle back into the bowl, the icing that falls should hold it’s shape for a quick couple of seconds before melting back into the bowl.  This is the perfect consistency – if it’s too thick, add another 1/2 tablespoon of water.  Use the icing as is, or pour some into little bowls to color, then spoon into squeeze bottles or icing bags to decorate as you wish.  Sally uses a Wilton Piping Tip #4 and usually outlines the cookies first, then fills in each section.  If using sprinkles, add these straight away.  This glaze needs about 24 hours to set completely, uncovered is best.