• Preheat oven to 375 F.
• In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter and powdered sugar.
• Add in the egg and vanilla and mix until fully incorporated, scraping the sides of the bowl if necessary.
• Slowly add in the flour and baking soda until fully combined. Once all the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl you'll know it's ready. You may have to add more flour depending on the consistency.
• Wrap the ball of dough in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for at least 20 minutes before rolling.
• Once chilled, roll your dough out about 1/4 inch thick and cut into desired shapes.
• Bake for 8-9 minutes. The cookies will look a little under-baked when you take them out, but I promise that's okay!
• Let them cool completely before removing from baking tray and icing.

For the Icing

• In the bowl of a stand mixer add your merengue powder and 2 tbs of warm water.
• Mix together on medium speed until slightly frothy.
• Slowly add in your powdered sugar until fully combined.
• Add in your remaining warm water 1 tablespoon at a time until you get the right icing consistency.
• Separate your icing into 2 bowls (1 for outline icing and 1 for flood icing)
• For outline icing, you want your icing to be the consistency of toothpaste (it will hold it's shape when you make a peak in the icing)
• For flood icing, you want it to be thick enough that it won't slide off the cookie, but thin enough that it will smooth out on the cookie. Slowly add water until you get the right consistency. (It should take about 8 seconds to completely smooth out in the bowl after you move it around with a spoon)
• Using your outline icing, pipe an outline around the area of your cookie that you want to fill with icing.
• Next, use your flood icing to fill in the area! The outline helps to prevent your flood icing from going over the edge of the cookie.
• If you want to make sure you're flood icing is nice and smooth, you can use a toothpick to swirl around the icing to make sure it is smooth and their are no air bubbles.
• If you want to add any other icing details to the top layer of your icing, just make sure the top layer is crusted over before you add more icing. If you want to speed up this process, you can put your cookies on a baking tray and put them in the oven for 10 minutes at the lowest heat setting (mine is 170C) and it will dry the icing a lot quicker.