• Preheat your oven to 350 F / 180 C and line your baking tray with parchment paper and keep aside.
• In a large bowl, sift the dry ingredients flour, and salt together, mix, and keep aside.
• In a stand mixer (you can also use the hand mixer for this) add in the butter, and sugar, and beat it at medium speed, scraping down the sides for at least 2-3 min or until the mixture is creamy.
• Add in the egg one at a time along with almond extract and beat until everything is incorporated well.
• Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in batches and mix till the dough is formed (the dough should pull away from the sides of the bowl).
• Flatten the dough to form a disc and wrap it with a cling wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour.
• Once chilled, roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/4-inch thickness and cut out Christmas Tree shapes using a Christmas Tree cookie cutter.
• Place the cut-outs on the prepared baking tray and bake for at least 12 min in a preheated oven.
• Let the cookies cool for 5 minutes in the baking tray before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely.

ROYAL ICING:

• Pour the egg white into a stand mixer fitted with a whip attachment and beat on high till it foams up. (You can also use a hand mixer)
• Lower the speed and add the sugar in batches and beat till the mixture becomes thick and starts to hold peaks.
• Divide the icing into 2 parts. Leave one part as it is (white) and tint the other part with green gel food color until you get desired shade.
• Now, reserve 1/4th of both the green and add 1-2 tsp of water to the remaining icing and mix well to make it a little thin.
• We will use thick icing to make the border around the cookies (Because it's thick and as no water has been added it will hold its shape well), and thin icing to cover the cookies completely.
• Put all the icings in different icing bags.
• Outline the cookies with the thick green icing first, keeping a little space on the edges of the cookies. Then flood the cookies with the thinner green icing; use a toothpick to spread the icing so it’s evenly filled.
• Let the green icing set (dry) entirely before decorating further.
• Now use white icing to make different sizes of circles on the cookies as I have done. Let it set completely.