Royal Icing

Learn how to make royal icing for cookies and cupcakes!  Royal icing is easy to make and stores well.  This post contains affiliate links.ne

I’ve never been great at making things look cute.  Tasty, yes.  Cute, not so much.  Case in point, royal icing.  There are so many cute things you can do with it!  But I am not good at any of them.  *wipes tear*  So, for those of you who are ready to tackle royal icing and making totally adorable cookies, I’ve invited my friend Diane of Created by Diane to share her royal icing recipe with you!

Diane is always making cute cut-out cookies, cupcakes, and other decorations with royal icing.  I think you will learn a lot from her today!

Royal icing is an icing that is great for decorating cookies, it dries hard so you can stack the cookies and even ship them. It’s smooth and can be drizzled over cookies, you can use it to outline cookies as well as flood the icing in so the icing is smooth and solid on top of the cookies.

You can also use royal icing to make cupcake toppers. Any simple shape can be made, in any color you can imagine. Wow the possibilities are endless. You can also put the royal icing toppers on brownies, cakes and cookies. They really create a 3D effect.

There are lots of online baking supply stores to order meringue powder and colorings from or check in your area for a cake supply store.

Here are a few ideas of what to do with the royal icing:

Cut-Out Cookies

Googly Eyes

Pumpkin Cupcakes

Reindeer Cupcakes

Gingerbread Cupcakes

Perfect Sugar Cookies

 

 

Royal Icing

 

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Prep time

10 mins

Total time

10 mins

 

A basic recipe for royal icing.

Author: Jen @ Jen's Favorite Cookies

Recipe type: Icing

Serves: 3.5 cups

Ingredients

• 1 pound powdered sugar (about 4½ cups)
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon meringue powder (*see notes)
• about ⅓ cup warm water (or more as needed for consistency)
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• gel food coloring

Instructions

1. In mixer bowl on low mix powdered sugar and meringue powder until it's combined, this will also reduce any clumping in the powdered sugar
2. Add warm water and extract and mix on low until combined
3. Turn mixer on medium-high and beat until it's fluffy and stiff. When beater is removed from mixer the icing should stand up and the peek should gently fall over.
4. Add more water as needed for the consistency you desire for your project.
5. Add food coloring and mix until the color is completely blended, remember some colors get darker as they sit especially when using gel colors. I prefer Americolor Food Colorings as they don't have taste and are not water based and won't effect the consistency of my icing if I add another drop as water based colors will do.
6. I use the 20 second method for outlining and flooding cookies and for drizzling over top of baked items along with making royal icing toppers. I use a little stiffer icing for eyes and writing.
7. Royal icing lasts 4 weeks at room temperature. If it separates, whip for 1-2 minutes to restore the texture.

Notes

I prefer to use Americolor meringue powder over the brands you can get at the craft store, because it is better quality and tastes better. I also use Americolor food coloring gels. Even when making white icing, the white gel color makes a very bright vibrant white.

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