Royal Icing
Here is our go-to recipe for royal icing! Today, royal icing is most often used either to decorate sugar cookies or for decorative accents on cakes.
It dries with a nice, firm finish which is perfect for cookies, or for decorating gum paste or fondant accents for cakes. This is because the decorations can be piped, dried, handled, or stacked without worry of smudging.
Royal icing is also great for small, make-ahead details that can be piped onto parchment, dried, and later added to cakes and cupcakes.
Table of Contents
Royal Icing and Cake Decorating
Aside from decorating sugar cookies, I personally don't decorate with royal icing very often. Frosting entire cakes in royal icing is not common in the US, although in Europe it has been a tradition for centuries.
In cake decorating, you will most often find royal icing used when adding decorative details to fondant or gum paste. You can also add dried royal icing pieces to frosted cakes just before an event.
This could mean piping accents directly onto a fondant-covered cake, as we did with our Gold Drip Cake, or it could be used for piping decorative accents, as with our Royal Icing Snowflakes.
*Just as a side note, a crusting buttercream frosting like our Classic Vanilla Buttercream recipe can be used for adding details to fondant or gum paste as well, you just have to be careful not to smudge it.
Royal Icing Consistency
As with any royal icing or buttercream recipe, consistency is key. If you are piping, you may need to slightly thicken up the consistency of the royal icing with additional powdered sugar.
If you are flooding cookies or just need a softer consistency, simply add more liquid.
Royal Icing
We use this royal icing recipe to decorate sugar cookies! You can also use it for piping details onto fondant or gum paste, or for creating decorations to place on cakes and cupcakes.
Ingredients
- ¼ cup (30g) meringue powder
- ½ cup (120ml) warm water
- 1 lb. (4 cups or 453g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted
- ½ teaspoon clear vanilla
Instructions
This royal icing is piping consistency… but you may still need to add a little more powdered sugar to thicken, or a few drops of water to make it thinner, depending on the consistency you are going for. This recipe can also be halved.
- Add meringue powder to warm water in your mixing bowl.
- Whisk by hand until meringue powder is dissolved –about 1 minute.
- With the paddle attachment on your mixer, add the confectioners’ sugar and clear vanilla and mix at low speed until the sugar is incorporated. Increase speed to Medium-High and beat for 7 – 8 minutes until stiff peaks form.
- The stiff peak stage is ready for piping or you can make it slightly stiffer by add more confectioners’ sugar a small amount at a time — it becomes a matter of preference and you will determine what works best for you.
Stiff Peak stage is when you lift your spoon out of the bowl the icing stands in a straight peak.
Soft Peak stage is when the spoon is lifted the peak is straight with a slight curve at the end;
For Flooding you will need to add water a little at a time until because the consistency will change very quickly.
Hi Melissa,
I have a cake to make with satin ice (gum paste) ruffles, however it has been raining for over a week and all my gum paste flowers have now wilted and look really sad. The gum paste ruffles I made last night are holding up better (because they just need to look like ruffles, not petals) however they have that wet look. Would I be better to use royal icing or will this also look wet and sticky. Or would I be best to place the cake in the fridge once ruffles are done? Any other suggestions are welcome.
Hi Emma--I'm so sorry that you are having issues...it must be REALLY humid for your gum paste to have a wet look. I haven't experienced that before with Satin Ice gum paste. Are you storing them just at room temp (and not in an airtight container)? --
Gum paste would be my first choice because royal icing is effected a lot by humidity. You could try it...but I'm afraid they may take a really long time to dry...and will probably be more on the soft side. --
Some people use multi-tray food dehydrators with their gum paste pieces. Not sure if that is an option for you--maybe in the future? But for now, another trick that people use is to put their gum paste pieces on a parchment lined tray (parchment breathes better than waxed paper) and into the oven with only the oven light on. It couldn't hurt! (just tape a big sign on the oven so nobody will turn it on ;0) )-- When I'm desperate, I've even sprinkled a layer of tylose onto my parchment and laid my pieces right into it. Not sure that it helped...but it made me feel better :0) -
I hope that your gp pieces from last night firm up for you.
Placing the cake in the fridge does keep things firm...but I think you would be better off with leaving the gum paste ruffles at room temperature--condensation on top of the humidity you already have going on could make them even softer.
You could also post your question in the message boards--maybe other cakers who live in really humid areas will have more tips--- good luck!!
Thank you Thank you Thank you. I'll try anything at this stage. Let you know how things turns out.
hi Melissa , do you have any idea how to pasterize the egg white , or the link .I'll appreciate for that , thank you .
going to give the decorating cookie thing and run this coming week, to color our royal icing, can we just use our regular fondant paste dyes?(Wilton Icing Colors) Or does royal icing require the oil candy colorings?
Hi Jules--just the regular coloring that you use with fondant or buttercream is fine!
thank you! Kinda what I thought, but truly don't have time for too many mistakes this week, lol Thanks again and as always, your site is amazing and membership worth it's weight in gold!!:)
Geez, leave it to me to begin with a ridiculous color like RED! Any tips on getting royal icing a true red? I'm on my second bottle of paste coloring and it's still not really red. I know letting it sit may help to deepen the color, anything else I should do? THANKS!!
Hi Jules, I'm sorry you are having trouble! Has the red intensified for you? It really should deepen a good amount. We've had the best luck with Americolor Super Red because it is more concentrated than Wilton and some of the other brands.
Hi! I wanted to know what consistency should I leave the royal icing , I wanted to cover a fondant cake with the damask stencil. Any help would be great! Thanks
Hi me too, same question above me,, i want to know the consistency of the royal as i will be covering fondant with damask stencil, and how can i achieve jet black royal icing? Should i leave it overnight to intesify the color? Does it dries well on fondant if i leave it out room temperature? Will be my first time making royal thats why, thank you so much melissa!
Hi--sorry I missed the above question! This royal recipe should give you a good medium consistency for applying to a stencil. You don't want your royal to be runny, as you won't be able to apply it neatly. I really recommend doing a trial run on parchment, paper towel, etc. with the stencil before applying to your cake so that you can get a feel for it. If the royal seems to runny, just add a little more powdered sugar. It should be soft enough that spreading a thin layer across the stencil comes easily.
As for achieving black royal icing, I have good luck with Americolor Super Black. Yes, you will want to add the black to within a couple of shades of the desired color...it will intensify over the course of several hours. Yes, it will set up so that it is dry to the touch at room temperature. Good luck!