- Cream the soft butter with the sugar until the combination is smooth not grainy to the touch in a mixing bowl.

-Add all 4 eggs at one time...Continue to mix. -Add the vanilla.. Continue mixing.

-Sift the four, baking powder, and salt together.

-Add the dry mixture to the wet mixture.

-Continue mixing to make sure all ingredients are thoroughly blended.

-Make the dough into a ball, wrap it in cling wrap completely covering the entire dough ball.

-Put in the refrigerator for about 6 hours or overnight. Check to see if the dough is firm.

-Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

-Pull the cookie dough out of the refrigerator and sit it out to soften up a bit.

- Put flour out on the wood cutting board, rub flour on the rolling pin, and work some flour into the batter.

-Roll the dough out on the cutting board and using your cookie cutters begin to make your cookies.

-Line the cookie sheet with parchment paper.

-Using a metal spatula move the cut cookie to the parchment lined cookie sheet.

-Bake at 325 degrees for 8 minutes. Check to see if the cookies are thoroughly baked.

-Take the cookies off of the cookie sheet and put on a wire rack to cool completely. (About 10 minutes).

Royal Icing

Icing Ingredients:

egg whites

C powder sugar

/2 tsp cream of tartar

Red, blue, green, and yellow gel food coloring

Wilton Black Foodwriter

Icing Directions:

-Combine all ingredients in a mixing bowl mixing on medium speed for 4 minutes. (except your food coloring)

-If icing is not stiff enough add 1/4 C powder sugar.

- Transfer icing from the large bowl into 4 bowls, divide the icing equally into each of the bowls.

-Bowl #1, add several drops of yellow gel food coloring stirring well until all of the color is blended; bowl #2 , add several drops of blue gel food coloring stirring well until all of the color is blended. Bowl #3, add several drops of green gel food coloring stirring well until all of the color is blended.

-Bowl #4, add several drops of red gel food coloring in the bowl of icing ... stir well to mix the color. (Red is a difficult color to get so you may have to continue to add the food coloring to get the bright deep red color. That is why we use a gel food color as it doesn't water down the icing.)

-Spoon each of the icings into individual frosting bags with a #5 tip.... twist the open end of the bag to push the icing to the tip.

ABC, and a Ruler...

-First step for each of the cookies is to outline the cookies following the examples given.

-Yellow for the ruler, A &1 are red, B &2 are blue while C & 3 are green.

-Allow each outline at least 30 seconds to dry before filling the body of the cookie in with the other icing*. ( After outlining all of the cookies in their colors you can push the *remaining icing out of the frosting bag into a bowl and add the 1 tsp of water and mix well to get the right consistency.) Using a butter knife to spread it from the outlined part inwards to the center icing all of the cookie to match the outline color.

-Set these aside and allow to completely dry about 4 hours.

-After the icing on the ruler cookie has completely dried use the Wilton Foodwriter in black to mark off the lines and numbers as shown on the example ruler.