Easy Royal Icing Recipe (2024)

FAQs

What three ingredients is royal icing made of? ›

There are three main types of royal icing: stiff consistency, piping consistency, and flood consistency. They are used for different decorating techniques, although sometimes you can use different consistencies to achieve the same result.

Some form of egg whites is an essential ingredient in royal icing as this is what allows the icing to harden. Meringue powder, fresh egg whites, or egg white powder can be used.

Cookie icing can be used in the same way that royal icing can; however, it doesn't dry as hard as royal icing does. It's great for flooding cookies or piping designs into wet icing. To thin the consistency of cookie icing, just pop it in the microwave for about 20 seconds.

Disadvantages: Royal icing can crack. This makes it ill-suited for covering large surface areas (for instance an entire cake) or curved surfaces. Royal icing is rarely the most nuanced of flavors, with a somewhat bland (albeit sweet) flavor.

Rule of thumb: if the icing is the exact color you want it in the bowl, you've added too much color! The color will continue to darken as you bag the icing, decorate and dry. So, you want the icing still to be a shade or two lighter in the bowl than you ultimately want.

You can make royal icing—with egg whites! This simple royal icing is made with pasteurized egg whites instead of meringue powder.

Icing sugar is also called “10x”, “powdered” or “confectioner's” sugar. It's a very finely ground sugar mixed with about 3% corn starch by weight. Royal icing is made by mixing icing sugar with egg white. Generally a 3:4 ratio of egg whites to cups of icing sugar (3 egg whites to 4 cups icing sugar).

Fat carries flavor, so using a splash of cream makes vanilla taste more intense. Using salt and acid (cream of tartar) balances the sugary sweetness. Silver rum adds a subtle flavor, without darkening the icing like vanilla. Creaming helps minimize the grit of powdered sugar.

When you mix the royal icing, keep your mixer on medium-low speed (I use speed 2 on my stand mixer) and mix the icing for no more than 5 minutes. The icing should hold a stiff peak and have a thick and creamy consistency. It looks a lot like softened cream cheese.

Which icing is easiest to use? ›

Buttercream is the most popular type of frosting largely because of its few ingredients and easy application. Classic buttercream requires beating butter into icing sugar until you reach a frosting consistency.

Undermix, and your royal icing looks translucent and is structurally weak. Overwhip, and you're giving too much volume to the egg proteins via air, causing the structure to weaken in a different way. Overmixed icing usually looks porous when dry, and sometimes will not even fully dry and be soft/brittle.

The lemon juice whitens the royal icing. The royal icing should be light, fluffy, and slightly stiff. You may need to adjust the consistency by adding more egg whites if the icing is too dry or more powdered sugar if it is too wet.

A: Bad tasting icing is very disappointing. It is likely caused by bad powdered sugar or vanilla extract.

Royal icing is frosting that's made from confectioners' sugar, egg whites, and flavorings, and used in many ways to decorate cookies and cakes. The biggest difference between buttercream frosting and royal icing is texture-buttercream is creamy and soft; royal icing hardens to a candy-like texture.

Icing recipes typically combine powdered sugar and liquid (like water, milk or juice) whereas buttercream frosting is made by creaming together butter, sugar and a little bit of milk to make the frosting fluffy, smooth and perfectly spreadable.

Royal icing is a hard white icing, made from softly beaten egg whites, icing sugar (powdered sugar), and sometimes lemon or lime juice.

Royal Icing sugar is the cake decorating sugar of choice. Pipe to create delicious decorations. Royal Icing Ingredients: Icing sugar, Dried egg albumen, Anticaking agent: Tricalcium phosphate, Acidity regulator: Citric acid.