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1
Preheat oven to 350u00b0F.
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2
In the large bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream together the butter and sugar.
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3
In a small bowl, combine the egg, vanilla extract, almond extract and espresso powder; add into to the butter/sugar mixture and mix to combine.
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4
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder. Slowly add it into the butter mixture until all the ingredients are well combined.
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5
Roll dough to a thickness of 1/4-inch between two layers of wax paper. Cut out desired shapes with a lightly floured cutter (I used an adorable ghost cutter). Just cut deep enough to cut the outline of the cookie. There is no need to plunge the details of the cookie cutter into the cookie dough yet, we'll do that later with the fondont.
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6
Slide the wax paper with the cookie cutouts onto a sheet pan and refrigerate for at least 5 minutes until the dough is firm enough to handle without distorting the cookies when you transfer them to a sheet pan for baking.
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7
Remove baking sheet from the refrigerator and transfer cookies to a silicone mat-lined sheet pan, spacing them about 2 inches apart. Bake for about 10 minutes.
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8
While the cookies are in the oven, roll the fondant to a thickness of 1/8-inch between two layers of wax paper. Use the same plunge cutter to make fondant shapes that match the cookies in the oven, but this time use the plunger to plunge the details into the fondant. Slide the sheet of waxed paper onto a baking tray and put it into the refrigerator to chill for a couple minutes.
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9
After the cookies have been removed from the oven and have cooled for about 5 minutes, top each with a fondant cutout, allowing the residual heat of the cookies to fuse the two together. Cool completely. Store in an airtight container for up to a week.
