Instructions

• Stir the flour, baking powder together. Reserve. Beat the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add milk and beaten eggs with vanilla and whisk until incorporated. Stir in a cup of flour at a time until a soft dough form. This dough will be sticky but will firm up once refrigerated.
• Turn into a clean and dry plastic bag or an airtight box and refrigerate 3 hours or overnight.
• Preheat oven to 375F. Cut parchment papers to fit 2-3 cookie trays.
• Sprinkle a clean surface area with flour.
• You will require several cups of extra flour as you roll the cookies particularly if you are working in a hot and humid climate.
• when the dough has softened slightly cut the dough into 3 equal pieces. Keep dough covered while working with each piece. Roll the dough to form a smooth ball. Use only as much flour as required. Excess addition of flour to the dough with make the cookies hard.
• Once the dough is easy to handle place it on the cut parchment paper and roll it to the size and thickness desired. Start rolling from the center outwards in smooth motions until the dough is 1/5 inch thick.
• Use the cutter desired, cut the shapes you like and pull away the cutter and the leftover dough. Start with the largest cookie cutter and work yourself up to the smallest. Cut a few extra cookies if you have dough. Sometimes they break while taking them off the cookie sheet so it’s úseful to have extras. Roll the leftover dough again and repeat until you have all the cookies you need.
• Lay the cookies on the parchment, Bake till golden. Bake long for a crisper cookie.
• Cool completely before icing. Refrigerate in air tight boxes in hot and humid weather.
• TO ASSEMBLE
• If using marzipan or fondant roll out the pieces and cut using the same size cookie cutter you plan to decorate. Apply edible glue to the cookie and lay the cut fondant or marzipan over it and press down very gently. Move on to the next layer and repeat with alternating colors or any color scheme you like.
• Place some edible glue on the base cookie over the fondant or royal icing especially in the center where the next cookie with sit. Place the smaller star over the larger one so that the corners of the stars donot overlap. Repeat with all remaining layers until you get to the smallest star.
• Apply edible glue to the tips and corners of all the stars and sprinkle on glitter, dragees or any kind of sugar sprinkles you like. Alternatively icing the tips with a design of your choice. Cool completely.
• These make wonderful Xmas gifts.