In a large bowl or with your stand mixer cream the granulated sugar and butter until it is fluffy. If using the stand mixer it will take about 5 minutes.

Once the sugar and butter is creamed together, add in the egg and vanilla extract.

In a medium sized bowl mix the flour, baking powder, salt. Use a whisk to mix everything together thoroughly.

Slowly add the flour mixture to the sugar, butter, egg and vanilla extract mixture. Mix everything until well incorporated.

Put half of the freshly made dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll it out to 1/4 inch thick.

Repeat with the rest of the dough.

Put the rolled dough including the parchment paper, on a cookie sheet and refrigerate for 10 minutes or longer.

Your dough will be chilled and ready to cut and bake.

Repeat with scraps after cutting cookies.

Bake at 325° F for 10 -15 minutes. Let cool.

While the cookies are cooling make your Royal Icing.

Combine the sugar and meringue powder in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on low speed until well combined.

Stir in 2 tablespoons of the water.

Next, add a clear extract to make your frosting take on different flavors if you want to.

If the mixture is still crumbly add the rest of the water.

Mix on medium-low speed for 5 minutes.

When the cookies are cooled completely, it is time to frost them.

If you want to make the face with royal icing instead of the edible markers before doing any thinning of the icing, set aside 1/4 cup of the icing after making the icing.

Using 1/2 cup of royal icing, fill a piping bag with royal icing and pipe the outline of the circle with a number #4 round tip. Let it dry for 10 minutes.

While the outline is drying, thin out the icing to be about a 6 second second icing by adding water to the frosting in the mixer 1 teaspoon at a time until you reach 6 second icing.

Put 1/2 cup of the royal icing in to a piping bag and fill the circle (also known as flooding) with the 6 second icing. Allow the filling to dry for about 10 minutes.

Using the Edible Markers draw on Jack’s face. If you want to make the face with royal icing instead of the edible markers before doing any thinning of the icing, set aside 1/4 cup of the icing at the beginning of making the icing and dye it black with food coloring and use that.