Royal Icing
Cake stenciled with Royal Icing
Royal icing is a hard form of icing traditionally used to cover cakes. With the passing of time however, it is now used in a lot of other ways such as a hard frosting for sugar cookies. It dries out easily which is both a positive and a negative. It must be kept covered always when not in use.
Sugar Cookies flooded with Royal Icing
A special use of royal icing is the stenciling of cakes as it dries out quickly, thus allowing the cake artist to complete the job in a timely manner with little or no stains or color bleeds.
Tiered cake stenciled with Royal Icing
INGREDIENTS:
(1) 2 Large Egg Whites
(2) 2 Teaspoons Lemon Juice
(3) 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 Cups Confectioners/Icing Sugar
Cupcake High Heels. Insoles of Shoes made with Sugar Cookies frosted with Royal Icing
NOTE:
(1) Royal icing can either be made with meringue powder or egg whites. In this recipe I made use of egg whites.
(2) The quantity of icing sugar used will depend on what you want to use the royal icing for. If you are going to cover a cake with it or flood cookies, 3-1/2 Cups should be sufficient. If however you are going to use it to stencil cakes or make other designs on cakes and cookies, then you should use as much confectioners sugar as you would need to get the desired thickness.
(3) Though I used a stand mixer for this recipe, it can be done with a hand mixer or with a bowl and wooden spoon.
Damask Pattern made with Royal Icing
PROCEDURE:
(1) Separate egg whites from yolk
(2) Place egg whites and lemon juice in bowl of stand mixer fitted with paddle attachment and beat to combine.
(3) Sift icing sugar to remove lumps and add to egg mixture while the mixer runs on low speed. Add icing sugar 1/2 cup at a time for easy incorporation. Keep adding icing sugar in half cup increments until you achieve the desired consistency.
(3) If you want to color the royal icing, you can do so now with either gel or liquid food colors. A little color goes a long way, so be sure to add color little at a time and beat/mix to incorporate color.
Always remember to cover royal icing when not in use to prevent it from drying out. I usually cover the top of my stand mixer bowl with cling film when I am not using the royal icing.
END NOTE TIP: Royal icing makes a good gluing agent for your fondant flowers and other cake decorations.
Spiderman Themed Cake. Webs on Spiderman’s costume and on the top right corner of the cake made with Royal Icing.
Terry Adido is passionate about showing people how easy it is to recreate restaurant quality meals in the comfort of their kitchens. With a style of cooking he refers to as Afro-European Fusion, his meals are influenced greatly by French and Italian Cuisine with a West African twist. If you love good food, you are in for the ride of your life.
I hate royal icing cos I find it hard to make maybe it was how I was taught(beating air white to soft peak or meringue stage before adding icing and the beating is done with hand)coming to SA.my lecturer taught me this method but have not used it for cake decorating only flooding of cookies.love royal cos it dries out fast.
Chinasa, yes it is cool bcos it dries quickly. I am not aware of the beating until soft peaks method.
Tanx a bunch Terry,been looking forward to this.Pls I wnt to know if one can still get d desired result in d absence of lemon juice
Yes you will. You can leave it out or substitute with water.
you can use cream of Tartar in place of lemon juice.
Thanks for your impute Sarah.
Thanks Terry.Plz how can one use royal icing to make patterns on cake?
I will have a post on this shortly.
Thanks, will try this out soon. You’re one of kind always making baking look easier with your simple step by step methods. Bless you!
Thanks Clair.
Hi terry am just puzzled how do u put the icing on the cookies cuz u cannot cut it out with a cookie cutter in that shape unlike fondant that is pliable to cut so how do u get that shape on the cookie ?
Bukky, its actually quite easy. Its called bordering and flooding. You make some thick royal icing and pipe around the edges of the cookies to form a border. Next, you flood the inside of the cookies with lighter royal icing.
Hello Terry I have realy learnt from u please keep d good work, please anytime I ice my cake, royal icing,crumbs always come out from d cake nd it makes my icing rough
Hi. Make sure you put the cake in the fridge so that it gets cold and strong. That should minimize the crumbing of the cake. You can also use apricot jam to glaze the cake before frosting. Heat the apricot jam in the microwave for some minutes, sieve it, then brush the cake with it. Allow to chill for a while in the fridge before pouring your royal icing on it.
Thanks so much it makes sense now . I went to research it and now i understand
Is the fondant meant to be liquid? Thanks.
Royal icing used for flooding or covering cakes has the consistency of thick cream.
tanks for the good explanation on the royal icing for stencil.have learn something
You are welcome Titi.
Got that, please how did u do d shoe fondant.
How did u com about this spiderman designing.
You can find that tutorial here.
A tutorial for how I make shoes can be found here.
hello! pls in the absence of jam can one use butter?
Technically, yes. Practically, no.
thanks sir,ur tutorial is well detailed.
You are welcome Blessing.
Thanks a lot. Learning a lot from you!
You are welcome Gloria.
Hi terry. Thank you for this recipe. Can you please share your different sugar cookie recipes. Couldn’t find it on your blog. Thank you.
Hopefully I will work on one soon. Thanks
This is amazing. I am so felled with tips on stencil.ls step by step
You are welcome Monica.
Hi. Can i use corn syrup in place of egg? This it to do a stencil pattern on fondant. Do u think IT will come out the same and not bleed out?
Hi. I have never tried that and so cannot advice either way.
Hi Terry. Gud evening. I am Nancy Obinna from Nigeria. I appreciate all your good works and would love to learn more from you. I love baking and decorating cakes and currently going to a local Catering school. Keep up the good works.
Thanks Nancy.
Hi. I haven’t made royal icing but il try your recipe. Can royal icing be stored. I actually want to use it for stencil work . But just a little to try it out. This recipe will have extra. Thank you for the tutorial. I can see you replied most questions .