Stacked Christmas Tree Cookies

Cookies

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a medium bowl, beat together butter, sugar, egg and vanilla until light and fluffy. In a separate bowl, whisk together flour and baking powder. Add this mixture to the butter mixture and beat until well blended.
3. Next, shape dough into 3 different sizes of cookies. Use a rounded teaspoon of dough to make 1 small ball. Then use 2 rounded teaspoons of dough to make a middle size ball. Use 3 rounded teaspoons of dough to make a large ball. There should be at 15 balls of each size, resulting in 15 cookie stacks.
4. Place the small balls onto 1 parchment paper lined baking sheet. Use a glass to gently flatten them slightly. Place the medium size balls on a separate sheet and again press them down gently. Finally place the large balls on a separate sheet and press them down slightly. Due to the different sizes, the cookies will take different amounts of time to bake therefore each size of cookie should have it’s own baking sheet.
5. Bake until the bottoms are starting to brown. Small cookies will take approximately 4-6 minutes, medium will take 6-8 minutes and large will take 8-10 minutes. Remove cookies from the baking sheets and allow them to cool completely on wire racks prior to frosting.

Frosting

1. Prepare the frosting while the cookies are cooling. In a medium bowl, beat together powdered sugar, and butter. When this is well combined and light and fluffy, beat in the milk and vanilla. Add food coloring if desired.
2. Use the frosting to “glue” together the 3 cookies (largest on the bottom, then middle sized, then the smallest on top) to make a christmas tree or snowman. Pipe or spread frosting onto the top of the largest size cookie and place the middle size cookie on top. Next, pipe or spread frosting on the top of the middle size cookie and place the small size cookie on top. Finish with a small amount of frosting on the small size cookie to finish. Add sprinkles if desired.