Royal Icing
This is the traditional icing for glazing cookies, piping decorations, or assembling the walls of a gingerbread house. It's light and fluffy; the more you beat it, the stiffer it becomes. For a thinner version, simply thin with a bit of water until you have a consistency that will flow evenly over the cookie. Let it dry to a hard, shiny surface, then you can pipe over it or use food-safe markers to decorate. To color the frosting, we recommend gel paste or powdered colors. Liquid food coloring can dilute the frosting so much it separates and becomes grainy. Be sure to store any frosting you're not using in a tightly covered container; it becomes quite hard as it dries. We make this big batch of frosting, then divide it into smaller amounts to tint different colors.
- 1/4 cup meringue powder
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 3 to 4 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
- 3/4 cup cool water
Directions
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Recipe summary
- Hands-on time:
- 15 mins. to 20 mins.
- Baking time:
- Total time:
- Yield:
- 3 cups
- Recipe comments (2) »
Tips from our bakers
- To make a hard cookie glaze, thin some of the frosting with a little more water. Dip the top of a cooled cookie into the frosting, then sweep across the top with a spatula to remove the excess. At this point you can sprinkle the wet glaze with colored sugar and let it dry, or put another color on top and swirl it through with a toothpick.
- To keep the frosting in a pastry bag from hardening at the tip, place the pastry bag inside a second, uncut bag. This will shield the open tip from the air, and keep the frosting from leaking out.
- When decorating, here are some of the tools you may find handy to have on hand: craft paintbrushes for spreading frosting; toothpicks for drawing one color through another; tweezers for placing sugar decorations, and colored sugars for sprinkling over wet icing.
| Nutrition Facts | |
|---|---|
| Serving Size 17g
Servings Per Batch 36 |
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| Amount Per Serving | |
| Calories 46 | Calories from Fat 0g |
| Daily Value* | |
| Total Fat | 0g |
| Saturated Fat | 0g |
| Trans Fat | 0g |
| Cholesterol | 0mg |
| Sodium | 21mg |
| Total Carbohydrate | 11g |
| Dietary Fiber | 0g |
| Sugars | 11g |
| Protein | 0g |
| * The nutrition information provided for each recipe is determined by the ESHA Genesis R&D software program. Substituting any ingredients may change the posted nutrition information. | |
Reviews
06/11/2009
NOT SPECIFIC 3-4 CUPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Depending on your use for this icing (thin to ice the cookies or thicker to pipe decorations) you may need different icing consistency. The recipe suggests you start with 3 cups, and add up to 4 cups to meet your decorating needs. Irene at KAF
11/18/2008
What about a recipe for Royal Icing when you don't have meringue powder available where you live? Surely there was a way of making it before meringue powder was invented?
Here is a royal icing recipe using egg white. It is from our 200th Anniversary Cook book. 1 egg white, 1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, 1/8 teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon lemon juice. Beat all of the ingredients until it forms peaks. Have fun with it. Mary @ King Arthur Flour
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