• 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.
• Place the buttercream into an icing bag with the Wilton tip #2 in the bag.

Decorating the Wedding Dress Cookies

• Place a small amount of frosting on the top part of the dress.
• Use your palette knife to smooth this part of the dress, creating a thin "sheer" appearance. You will also want to shape the dress to mimic the dress style the bride is wearing. In my case, I created a "V" cut top.
• Squeeze out a lot of frosting onto the skirt part of the dress. I did several rough layers of frosting since the Wilton tip #2 is a small tip.
• Use the palette knife to smooth the frosting evenly over the skirt. Then, create folds by pressing into the frosting with the tip of the palette knife and draw a vertical line down from the top of the skirt to the bottom. I held the palette knife perpendicular to the dress in order to do this, but your dress style may be different.
• Use the palette knife to connect the skirt thickness to the sheer top thickness. I just spread some of the skirt frosting up into the top until it was a gradual decline in thickness. This doesn't need to be perfect since there will be an overlay.
• Pipe the overlay by creating small details with the tip #2. This wedding dress had a floral/leaf overlay so I kept it simple by piping small hearts as the leaves and small teardrops to fill in other spaces.