It’s a total staple.

You’ll love this royal icing because it’s easy to make and perfect for so many
things. You can use it to make transfers, pipe roses or intricate embroidery-like accents on
cakes, to glue together a gingerbread house, or to make my favorite: decorated cookies.

I have a few great cookie recipes on this site that are just begging for a little royal icing
embellishment! Be sure to check out my Cut-Out Cookies that Don’t Spread, Chocolate Cut-Out
Cookies, Gingerbread Cookies, and Soft Cut-Out Sugar Cookies.
at is royal icing?
Royal icing is an easy to make icing that’s made from just 3 simple ingredients: meringue
powder, water, and powdered sugar. (Some recipes call for egg whites instead of meringue
powder, but I prefer to use the powder because the results are more consistent and it’s more
safe to eat.)

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As it dries, it hardens to the consistency of candy, similar to like button candy or a smarty. Hard
enough to not smear, but not so hard you can’t bite it easily.

It’s perfect for piping decorations. Pipe out your image, flower, or whatever, then set it out to dry
for a few hours or overnight.

What does royal icing taste like?

Royal icing mostly just tastes like sugar. It’s very sweet, and most meringue powders will also
give it a subtle vanilla flavor.

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You can jazz up the taste by adding lemon juice or any other kind of extract, but just be aware
of how liquids affect the consistency. Decorating with royal icing is ALL about the consistency!

Best royal icing for piping decorations.

How to tint royal icing
Royal icing can be tinted in all sorts of colors. You can use any kind of food coloring you like,
but I have a strong preference for gel paste icing colors. They are highly concentrated, so not
only do you not need much, but you don’t have to worry about them diluting the consistency.

How to get the right consistency

Like I said, when it comes to royal icing, the consistency is so important!

You want to start out by making your icing as stiff as possible. Whip it for a long time so it gets
lots of air in it.
Stiff royal icing for piping flowers and gingerbread houses.
Then, scoop a little into a small bowl, and tint it with your icing colors.

Last step: thin it down to the consistency you need.

If you are making a gingerbread house, you probably want it to be very stiff so that it can hold
the structure together. Same goes for piping roses or any other kind of flower.

If you are making a royal icing transfer, or decorating cookies, it’s nice to have 2 different
consistencies: one that’s pretty thin for flooding, and one that’s a little stiffer for outlining.

The flood icing will sort of self-level. In other words, when you pipe it out, it will naturally spread
and smooth over perfectly flat.

Thin royal icing for flooding.

The outline consistency icing will hold the flood icing within its barriers, so it doesn’t spill over
the sides of the cookie. You can also use it for accents here and there, to give the decorated
cookies a little more dimension.

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Stir a few drops of water at a time into the bowl of tinted icing, until you get the thickness you’re
after. If you’re not sure, take a peek at the video (just above the recipe card) to see what
flooding icing and outlining icing should look like.

Foolproof Royal Icing Recipe for Decorated Cookies, Cakes, and Gingerbread Houses
How to dry royal icing
Once your royal icing has been piped on, you can set it out to dry. After just 15 to 30 minutes, it
will form a thin crust on the surface, but it generally will stay wet underneath for several hours.

I usually set my cookies out (in a single, flat layer, on parchment-lined baking sheets) overnight
to dry. They won’t get stale that quickly, because the royal icing actually serves almost like a
barrier from the air.

I would not recommend drying royal icing in the refrigerator or freezer. The humidity levels can
be funny in there, so room temperature is best. If you need to speed up the process, just set up
a fan nearby.

How long does royal icing last?

Royal icing really won’t ever spoil, because the sugar content is so high that bacteria can’t grow.
It’s really a lot like candy. But having said that, you will notice the quality will degrade over time.
After 24 hours, the royal icing will become more thin and watery. It can be thickened back up
with a little more powdered sugar, if needed.

After 36 hours, it may start to separate. You can stir it though, and it will come back together.

After about 48 hours, you might start to notice a grainy texture. I don’t think there’s any way to
recover it from that state, so I generally try to either use up or throw away any leftover royal icing
after 2 or 3 days.

A few tips/tricks to make royal icing decorating easier

I like to re-use my piping bags (even the disposable plastic ones sometimes), so I included a
little trick in the video below that makes cleanup a snap! Basically you just enclose the icing in
plastic wrap before placing it into the piping bag. That way, when you’re done, you just slide out
the wrapped-up icing, and you really only have to clean your tips.

I also like to twist the end of the bag and secure it with a rubber band or twisty-tie. It keeps
everything together nicely and if any icing comes up the top, it doesn’t harden and scatter dried
icing crumbs everywhere.

If you’ve ever used royal icing before, you may remember feeling frustrated when it hardens at
the tip. It only takes a few minutes for the icing in the little pinhole of your piping tip to harden,
and then you can’t squeeze it out at all. You can break it up with a toothpick, but then
sometimes you’re forcing hardened icing into your tip and creating a clog. So, try placing a
damp towel in the bottom of a drinking glass, and keep your bags (tip side down) in there. That
little bit of moisture in the paper towel will prevent those clogged tips from happening.

Smooth Royal Icing Recipe for Flooding

Do you like to decorate with royal icing? Have you ever made a recipe like this? Do you have
any other great tips that make things easier? If so, I hope you’ll share in a comment below!