• In a bowl blend together flour, butter, all the sugar and salt. As the mixture becomes crumbly, add the egg and vanilla until you have a cohesive dough. Flatten the dough into a disc and wrap in plastic wrap and chill in the fridge for 1 hour. Remove from the fridge and roll the dough evenly on lightly floured parchment paper and let chill in the fridge for 30 minutes. Cut out the desired shape, number/ letter and bake for 20 minutes in a preheated 350°F oven until golden.

For the mascarpone cream:

• Whisk together mascarpone, whipping cream, powdered sugar and vanilla until well blended and thick. Refrigerate until you are ready to use.

To Decorate:

• Fit a piping bag with a round tip, and fill it with the cream filling. Take one cookie and pipe two rows of frosting around the edges of the cookie, covering the top surface completely. Gently place a second cookie on top of the first, and repeat the frosting pattern. Do this again if you are doing three layers.
• Decorate the top of the cookie with fresh berries, candies, macarons, fresh flowers or anything else you like. They look best when covered with a colorful assortment of treats.
• The texture of the cookie and the filling stand up very well and can be refrigerated for at least a few hours. The cookies and filling can both be made a day or two in advance and then it’s short work to assemble everything on the day of serving.