Royal icing is the awesome, hard-drying icing you see on all of the most awesome cookies out there. I have been working for months (literally) to get the recipe
just right, so here it is.
What You Need: Vinegar or lemon juice to wipe down equipment
1 lb. powdered sugar
3 Tbsp. meringue powder
1/3 cup water
2 Tbsp. light corn syrup
1-2 tsp. clear vanilla flavoring (or other flavoring of your choice)
(Click here for a Royal Icing Recipe using Egg Whites instead of Meringue Powder.) Begin by wiping down all of the tools you will use with your icing (bowl, spatula, beaters, measuring cups/spoons, etc.) with a paper towel dampened with white vinegar or lemon juice. This will help remove all of the grease. Grease is the mortal enemy of royal icing. It will cause it to never dry completely... making you crazy in the process.
Measure powdered sugar. (preferably by weight. If you don't have a kitchen scale, approx. 3 1/2 -4 cups of powdered sugar will do.)
In the bowl of a mixer, combine the powdered sugar and the meringue powder.
Add the corn syrup and the flavoring to the 1/3 cup of water.
With the mixer on low, add the liquid to the powdered sugar mixture.
Once the powders have all been combined, mix the icing for about 4-5 minutes on medium speed until it holds a stiff peak...
... like this.
Always, always, always keep your royal icing covered with a damp cloth. This stuff dries out very quickly. So, if you don't have it covered, it will harden and you won't be able to use it.
You always want to color your royal icing with gel-based icing colors. If you use an oil-based color (usually only used for candy, so you probably don't have any unless you bought it on purpose), it will ruin your icing.
This colored (or white) icing is what you will use for your outline. Grab some plastic wrap and put about 1/3 or 1/4 of the icing into an
icing bag bullet to use for outlines.
(Besides the fact that the bullets make clean up
so much easier, for royal icing, they are great because they help keep it from drying out while you're coloring and mixing the other icing.)
To get the rest of the icing to a "flooding" consistency, the consistency you want to make smooth, pretty cookies, you'll want to add water
a little at a time- we're talking by the teaspoon or less- until any lines in the icing disappear in 8 seconds.
What that means is that you will thin the icing until it looks
kind of runny. Get a dollop on the spatula or spoon. Drop a large drop into the cup of icing as seen above.
That drop should all but disappear like you see above in the
slow count of 8-10. one...... two...... three........ ten.
I then pour this icing into a zip-top sandwich bag to flood my cookies.
To decorate with this icing, you want to outline your cookies with a tip #1, 2, or 3 (depending on how thick you like your outline to be). Allow that to dry for at least 20 minutes before you add the flooding icing.
The flooding icing usually takes several hours to overnight to dry completely. And some colors, like red and black occasionally don't dry completely. I'm still working the bugs out on those two. My last project, I got the red to dry... but still not the black, so I'm avoiding black to flood cookies with for now if I can.
You want to use this icing the same day you make it. If it sits for more than a few hours, you'll need to mix it up again. Sometimes just squeezing it in the bag will do, but if it's been more than 24 hours, you'll need to get it in a bowl and actually mix it with a spatula or mixer.
Royal icing is a pain to work with sometimes, just because it is a little fussy, but it's so worth it when you can stack all of your cookies, or send perfect cookies in the mail, and have the icing stay just right! Give it a try!
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