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 Decorations piped with Royal Icing. Traditionally Royal Icing is made with egg whites, but a perfectly lovely Royal Icing can be made with Meringue Powder (dried egg whites) — eliminating concerns about serving an icing made with raw eggs.
Ingredients for Royal Icing
- 4 cups powdered sugar
- 3 tablespoons meringue powder (found in cake supply stores, some craft stores such as Michael’s and some grocery stores)
- 1 – 3 teaspoons vanilla extract (or experiment with other flavorings, but add them one teaspoon at a time — it’s easy to overpower Royal Icing with too much added flavoring)
- 8 – 12 tablespoons warm water
Directions for Easy Royal Icing
- Place all of the powdered sugar and meringue in your mixing bowl.
- Add vanilla and 1 tablespoon of warm water. Mix thoroughly at low speed.
- Add another tablespoon of water. Mix thoroughly.
- Repeat step three until all water is added or until desired consistency is reached.
- Beat on low to medium speed for another 5 – 7 minutes.
Now, wasn’t that easy? If you’re unsure of what consistency of Royal Icing you need, just experiment. Working with Royal Icing takes practice. For thinner icing, use more water, added one tablespoon at a time. To thicken icing, add powdered sugar, two tablespoons at a time.
Royal icing is perfect for decorating sugar cookies, provides a hard shell for cakes (but is more difficult to smooth than fondant) and is useful for special effects on either cakes or cookies.
The picture shown is of decorations piped onto wax paper (you can also pipe onto parchment). When the decorations dry (drying time can be up to 24 hours), they can be peeled away from the wax paper and placed on the cake. If your decorations are thin, be sure to pipe extras because the thinner the piece, the more likely there will be breakage when removing the piece from the wax paper.
Coloring Royal Icing
Royal icing is simple to color with either liquid food colorings (commonly found in US grocery stores) or gel food colorings (found in cake supply stores, craft stores such as Michael’s, and some grocery stores). However, use caution with liquid food coloring as they can cause the colored Royal Icing to “bleed” into other colors on the cake, particularly if you’re piping onto fondant.
Royal Icing Caution
When exposed to air, royal icing dries/stiffens quickly. When not in use, store in an airtight container and be sure to keep bowl with excess icing covered during the icing process. If the icing gets too stiff, add a teaspoon warm water and mix thorougly.
Feel the Royal Icing Burn
In spite of the preferred directions above, if you don’t have an electric mixer, you can still whip up a batch of Easy Royal Icing by hand. Yes, it provides a good upper arm workout, but it’s also completely doable. 
Tags: easy royal icing, meringue powder, sugar cookie icing
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