Royal Icing Recipe and Tips (2024)

FAQs

How to get perfect royal icing consistency? ›

If after making these adjustments, you think your icing is too thin or too thick for your application, don't worry. The icing consistency can be adjusted at any stage of the decorating process simply by stirring in sifted powdered sugar to thicken, or water to thin.

If the icing surface becomes smooth in anywhere between 5-10 seconds, then your icing is ready to use. If it takes longer than approximately 10 seconds, the icing is too thick. Slowly add more water. If your icing surface smoothes over in less than 5-10 seconds, it is too runny.

Outlining-consistency icing should squeeze easily out of a #2 pastry tip, stay in place, and hold its shape on the cookie when it lands. If the icing is too stiff, it will be hard to squeeze.

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 glycerin is the not-so-secret ingredient that keeps the icing from being rock hard. You can find it in the baking section at craft stores or online. The purpose of the white food coloring is to make the icing a pleasant bright white instead of off white.

One of the main keys to shiny icing is getting that icing to dry quickly. The faster the icing dries, the shinier it will be. One simple method to faster drying is to just aim a fan at your drying cookies. I like to aim the airflow so that it passes evenly over my cookie sheet, not directly down at a particular cookie.

I'd experienced this issue when I thinned my icing with too much water for flooding. The good news on that front is that if you noticed that you'd done it before you start icing a cookie, you can stir in some sifted powdered sugar (or some reserved piping consistency icing if you want some) and recover.

It takes royal icing six to eight hours to completely dry. Once you flood, spread, or pipe it onto your cookies, let them stand at room temperature. However, royal icing will start to dry mid-use if you're not careful.

For real detail work, many people may still choose to use a tip. For basic piping and flooding, going tipless may be your new thing! And the greatest part about using a tipless bag is that there is nothing to clean at the end of your decorating session!

Perfecting royal icing consistencies is one of the hardest things to do with the medium. Even for me, as an expert cookier, I don't always get the consistency right.

Why add corn syrup to royal icing? ›

Corn syrup helps give shine and also a soft-bite to your icing. Without corn syrup, your royal icing can be as hard as a rock, and no one wants to chip a tooth on a cookie. I use 1 Tablespoon of Karo Light Corn Syrup in my icing recipe.

For whatever reason, poking holes in the icing before layering on a design helps prevent any craters in the icing🙌🏽 It's worked for me EVERY👏🏽 SINGLE👏🏽 TIME👏🏽 This method is blowing up all over social media!

There are different versions of royal icing out there, but this is an easy one that comes together quickly with basic ingredients. This recipe uses milk instead of water, which gives it more flavor and just a tad of creaminess.

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.