• Remove all of the butter from the refrigerator. You will make the sugar cookies first but the butter for the frosting needs to come to room temperature before mixing.

Sugar Cookies

• Preheat the oven to 350℉ and prepare an aluminum cookie sheet by placing either parchment paper or a silicone baking mat on it.
• In a medium sized mixing bowl, combine the flour and baking powder and mix together. Set this aside.
• Cube a cup of salted butter and then, in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, combine the cubed butter with the granulated sugar. Mix until creamed together well.
• To the stand mixer, add in the egg and vanilla extract and mix until combined.
• Slowly add in the dry ingredients in the mixing bowl to the stand mixer.
• Roll the dough out to 3/8" thick and use the cookie cutters to cut out the cookies. Place the cookies onto the prepared baking sheet and bake for 9-11 minutes or until the tops of the cookies no longer look wet. When baking the cookies, only bake 6-8 cookies at a time to leave proper space between each cookie to cook without spreading. Overcrowding the cookie sheet will cause spread.

Buttercream Frosting

• In a stand mixer with the paddle attachment, add the room temperature salted and unsalted butter and mix on high until light and fluffy.
• Mix in the powdered sugar little by little. Add in the vanilla extract and milk about halfway through adding the sugar to help the frosting come together. Start with one tablespoon of milk and work up to three if needed, depending on the consistency you want. I like to aim for a peanut butter consistency or thinner.
• Dye about a quarter cup of the frosting blue. Divide the rest of the frosting and dye half of it red and the other half white. Place each color into an icing bag with a coupler.

Decorating & Arranging the 4th of July Cookie Platter

• First, arrange the unfrosted cookies onto the platter so you know how many you will need to fill the flag. I was able to make 16 cookies so I did four rows of four cookies. This gave me one blue cookie, seven red cookies, and eight white cookies.
• Attach the tip #5 to the bag of frosting with the blue buttercream. Outline and fill in the star using the back & forth piping method.
• Place white sprinkles (circles or stars) onto the blue star cookie before it dries.
• Remove/rinse/dry the tip #5 from the blue bag and attach it to the red buttercream bag. Outline and fill in all of the stars that will be red.
• Remove/rinse/dry the tip #5 from the red frosting and place it onto the white frosting. Outline and fill in all of the stars that will be white.
• Allow the cookies to crust/dry for 8-12 hours before arranging on the cookie tray. If you won't be stacking the cookies, but rather laying them flat next to each other, you do not need to wait for the cookies to dry before plating and presenting.