Instructions

For the Cookies

• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
• Add eggs on at a time and then add the vanilla. Mix well.
• In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients and add a little at a time to butter mixture.
• Mix until flour is completely incorporated and the dough comes together.
• Wrap in plastic wrap and chill for 1 to 2 hours. (I normally stick mine in the freezer over night)
• Roll cookies out to about 1/4 inch thickness (thicker or thinner depending on your preference)
• Cut out using an ring cookie cutter
• Bake on un-greased baking sheet at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes.
• Lay them on a wire rack to cool

For Icing:

• In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine the warm water and the meringue powder. Mix for about 30 seconds or until frothy.
• Add in the cream of tartar and mix for 30 seconds more.
• Pour in all the powdered sugar.
• Using the paddle attachment on the LOWEST speed, mix slowly for a full 10 minutes.
• Icing will get thick and creamy.

To decorate:

• Scoop out half of the white icing into a medium bowl.
• Scoop out 1/2 of the remaining white icing into a medium bowl and add in the black food coloring. Mix well to make gray.
• Fill a piping bag, fitted with a #5 piping tip, with some of the white icing. Sit aside.
• Fill a piping bag, fitted with a #5 piping tip, with a little bit of the gray icing. Sit aside.
• You\'ll use these to pipe your outlines.
• Using the gray icing draw the outline of the ring on the baked cookie.
• Use the white icing to pipe the outline of the diamond.
• Now in stir a little warm water into the white bowl of icing until the white icing is \"pour-able\".
• Using a spoon or a filled squeeze bottle, filling the white part of the diamond with white icing. Using a spoon or a tooth pick to pull the icing to fill the entire area.
• Do the same with the gray icing and fill the ring with icing.
• Let the icing dry for 1 hour.
• Use the white icing in the piping bag to draw little the detail on the diamond part of the ring.
• Let cookies dry completely (for a few hours).
• If using the luster dust, once the cookies are dry, mix a a teaspoon of the silver luster dust with a few drops of vanilla extract.
• Mix until it forms a very thin paint. Use a clean paint brush (that\\\'s NEVER been use for paint), and brush on to the ring part of the cookie.
• Let dry over night for a \"stack able cookie\"