Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. In a medium bowl, beat together the butter, sugar, egg, milk and vanilla.

Then add the flour (start with 2 cups), baking powder, and salt. Beat this until well blended. If the dough is still really sticky you may mix in another ¼ to ½ cup of flour.

Divide the cookie dough into 2 equal size disks. Wrap these and place them in the refrigerator for 1 hour (or until firm).

When you remove the dough from the refrigerator, allow it to sit at room temperature until soft enough to roll easily.

On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to ¼ inch thick.

Use a 2 ½ inch, lightly floured cookie cutter to cut out as many cookies as you are able to.

Place the cookies 1 inch apart on ungreased baking sheets.

Bake for 7-10 minutes or until the edges are just golden. (they can cook quickly so watch carefully after the 5-minute mark)

When the cookies are removed from the oven, move them to cooling racks to cool completely before frosting them.

To make the icing: In a large, grease-free mixing bowl, sift together the powdered sugar and meringue powder. Add 5 tablespoons of the warm water. Use a stand mixer with a whisk attachment (or an electric hand-held mixer) to beat at high power for 10 minutes. Check the consistency.

We want to get to a thicker consistency of icing that still has the ability to move and slide on the cookie a bit. Add more water if the icing is too thick. If it is too thin, beat longer, it thickens the longer you beat it.

When you are ready to ice/make the melted snow, drop a dollop of icing onto the middle of the cookie and carefully spread out towards the edges. You can make this as perfect or messy as you’d like, after all it’s a MELTED snowman cookie. Some icing might slowly run off the side, that's ok. But if it quickly runs off, your icing may be too thin. Either way, just use a little trial and error to get the look you want. There will be plenty to experiment!

Place one marshmallow on each cookie to represent the head of the snowman.

When you are ready to add the eyes and buttons, add some black gel coloring to some of the icing and pipe on arms and eyes. Do the same with orange food coloring to make icing for the carrot nose. Then drop on some mini m&ms for buttons, a licorice for the scarf and some sprinkles for fun!

The royal icing will take about 2 hours to dry. If you need the icing to firm up more quickly, you can refrigerate them.