Recipes

/

Home & Leisure

The Kitchn: How to make royal icing for fuss-free cookie decorating

Jesse Szewczyk, TheKitchn.com on

Every year as the holidays approach, I eagerly anticipate baking and decorating sugar cookies. And every year, they don’t exactly turn out as planned. That’s because decorating cookies is a lot easier said than done — especially if you’re a perfectionist like me who likes straight lines and clean edges.

But this year, I’m prepared. I got to work developing a simple royal icing recipe that makes cookie decorating as stress-free (and mess-free!) as possible. It’s easy to make (no meringue powder necessary!), and its super-smooth texture makes it the very best icing for picture-perfect cookies. Fuss-free cookie decorating is possible, and this recipe is the perfect place to start.

What’s the difference between royal icing and regular icing?

The biggest difference between royal icing and the type of icing you see drizzled over coffee cakes or spread onto cinnamon rolls is the texture. Royal icing dries into a hard, candy-like coating that crunches when you bite into it. It’s designed to harden so you can decorate on top of it with piped royal icing, or even paint it. If you’re looking for picture-perfect sugar cookies, royal icing is the way to go.

Royal icing ingredients

You only need three ingredients for this easy royal icing: egg whites, powdered sugar and any extracts or food colorings you like. I recommend using conventional powdered sugar rather than organic, which can give the icing an unwanted gray color. We’ve opted for egg whites rather than meringue powder (which you may see in other recipes) since meringue powder can be hard to source.

 

We’ve also included measurements for using pasteurized liquid egg whites in our recipe. These are the egg whites that come in the carton near the shell eggs. They’re a bit easier to work with and will save you from having to separate your eggs.

Piping and flooding sugar cookies

When you’re ready to decorate, you’ll want to split the icing into two bowls: one for piping and one for flooding. It’s important to note that royal icing dries out very quickly and forms a crusty skin if left uncovered, so make sure to cover it anytime you’re not working with it. If the surface does dry out, discard any dry pieces and give the icing a good mix to rehydrate it.

Piping icing: Piping icing is what you’ll use to pipe borders around the cookies. It should be relatively thick — like toothpaste. If you make the recipe as is, you should have the right consistency for piping.

...continued

swipe to next page

 

 

Comics

Crankshaft Red and Rover Kevin Siers Joey Weatherford Mother Goose & Grimm Mike Smith