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Royal Icing 101

November 2, 2012 By Francois

Royal icing is so much easier to make than it seems. For years I came up with new ways to decorate cookies that did not involve icing because I found it so intimidating. It’s only recently that I started using it and I’ll never look back. Here is a recipe and step-by-step on how to make Royal Icing:

Royal Icing 101
 
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Ingredients
  • One 2lb pack of confectioner sugar
  • ⅓ cup meringue powder
  • ¾ cup water
Instructions
  1. Place all 3 ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment.
  2. Mix on slow for a minute to wet the mixture.
  3. Turn the mixer to high speed and mix for 8 minutes.
3.1.08

Place all 3 ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment:

Mix on slow speed for a minute to wet the dry ingredients or they’ll fly all over the kitchen =):

Turn to high speed and mix for 8 minutes. It seems like a long time but trust me. The mixture will start to thicken up and look more and morel like icing:

Done!

Now here is how to color it: Spoon some icing in a glass measuring cup (I use glass instead of plastic because the inside surface is all smooth making it much easier to mix).

Add food coloring with toothpicks (easy to add a tiny bit at a time). Here I used copper brown. :

 Mix until the color is even. Make sure to scrape the sides and bottom:

The key to good royal icing is consistency. You need it to be liquid enough to flow and give you a smooth coat but you want it to be thick enough to stay relatively put when piped so it doesn’t drip off the cookie. Here is a trick to get it right:

Drag your spoon in the icing:

Now count how many seconds it takes for the icing to get back to a smooth top.

You want to be at around 20 seconds. If it takes longer, add a tiny bit of water, mix and try again. If it takes less than 20 seconds, mix the icing for a few minutes to thicken it up and try again.

That’s it! Easy, right?

Happy Baking!!!

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Filed Under: Tips & Tutorials Tagged With: 101, icing, royal, royal icing

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Comments

  1. Natalie

    January 4, 2013 at 9:07 pm

    How long would you keep that royal icing for?

    • Francois

      January 4, 2013 at 9:37 pm

      This icing is made with meringue powder instead of egg whites so you can keep it for weeks. To prevent it from drying, just cover your bowl with plastic wrap. After a few days, the sugar and water will separate. Just mix it together for a minute and you’re good to go again =)

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