Finally, a royal icing recipe to pair with my sugar cookie recipe!
You can use any technique to ice your cookies in royal icing, it doesn't have to be with a piping bag. Personally as my piping skills are somewhat lacklustre i really struggled to get those clean outlines of the royal icing on my cookies. This is something that will clearly take a lot of practice to get that technique right as it is an art form.
I started by using the base recipe when it is still thick to create a "flood" or a "dam" around the edge of the cookies. Then i use water to thin down the consistency of my icing and i am able to pipe this onto the inside of my border. This ensures that the thinner icing doesn't leak down the sides of my cookies.
Don't have time for that? There are two other super simple methods that you could try instead.
The first, calls for simply using a knife or the back of a spoon to spread the frosting onto your cookie. This won't yield a clean and flawless finish but the simplicity of it can be worth the sacrifice. You will need to ensure that you skip the steps of the recipe that call for adding water to thin your icing if you are using this technique.
The second, calls for making a slightly runnier icing and then simply sipping your cookie into the icing. This can be somewhat messy and it won't be as quick as the first method as it calls for waiting for the excess icing to drip off back into the bowl before flipping your cookie up the right way and laying it out to dry.
Ingredients:
3 egg whites
550g icing sugar/confectioners sugar
1/4 tsp cream of tartar
15ml vanilla essence
Method:
Place your egg whites, sugar and cream of tartar into the bowl of a stand mixer ( you can use a hand mixer for this one) and use your spatula to mix the ingredients until they are combined.
Using a whisk attachment, whisk your mixture on a medium setting for 1-3 minutes, depending on your mixer.
At this stage you can add your vanilla and any colouring and whisk for another 30 seconds to fully incorporate.
And that's it!
This is the base recipe, which is the perfect consistency to be spread right onto your cookies or using for "flooding" your cookies.
If you are going to be piping your royal icing, you will need to think it out after you have done your flooding. Start with 1 teaspoon of water at a time and mix that into your icing. You want your icing to be able to disappear back into the icing when falling from your spoon. Be careful not to add too much water as it will create a very running icing. Start small with adding your water.
Remember you can always add in more water, but you can't take any out.
Give this Royal Icing a try with my sugar cookie recipe which can be found here
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