Did my cliff hanger on friday leave you hanging?! Where you dying to know how to make perfect royal icing? That’s what I thought 😉
Here’s my post on Gingerbread cookies in which I detail the recipe I use and showcase some pretty photos. But if you thought those were pretty, wait till you see these ones! All the colours I worked into my royal icing made some colourful cookies that make my little mid-century modern Christmas a step closer to completion.
This is another Williams and Sonoma recipe, but honestly it’s the best one I’ve ever used and has created flawless royal icing each time. The secret to a successful royal icing is room temperature egg whites and cream of tartar!
Ingredients
- 3 egg whites, at room temperature
- 4 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
- Pinch of salt
- A few drops of vanilla extract or fresh
lemon juice (optional)
Directions
In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment, beat the egg whites, confectioners’ sugar, cream of tartar and salt on medium-low speed until blended. Add the vanilla or lemon juice (lemon juice? naaaaah, vanilla all the way), increase the speed to medium-high, and continue beating until stiff peaks form and the mixture is nearly triple in volume, 7-8 minutes.
and no, these aren’t still peaks, keep beating!
Remove the bowl from the mixer, cover tightly with plastic wrap and store at room temperature until ready to use, up to 6 hours. (I missed this last bit and let it sit on the counter for like 2 days before finishing my batches of cookies…. there wasn’t anything wrong with the icing, it just had to be whisked a little bit.)
Disclaimer: I had been hoping to create something like these beautiful reindeer, but then I remembered I don’t have gold or black food paint… womp womp womp
image from sweetapolita.com
Royal icing can be tricky to use for decorating if you don’t know how. You can flood your cookies, over-pipe your cookies (after having flooded or diped them), or dip your cookies. You can also do a million and one other things, it’s all up to you!
I opted to dip them and then over-pipe them and add dragés for some extra cheer. I’ve got atomic starbursts, mid-century tree topers and some small gingerbread.
For those of you who don’t know, these are tree toppers!
image from zilverblauw.nl
I really enjoy the complimentary tones of pink and red during the holiday season, so the tree toppers are my favourite cookie in this batch.
What recipe do you use for royal icing?
Royal Icing like a pro!
The secret to a successful royal icing is room temperature egg whites and cream of tartar. Read on for the full recipe.
Ingredients
- 3 egg whites
- 4 1/2 cups confectioners’ sugar
- 1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
- Pinch of salt
- A few drops of vanilla extract
Instructions
- In an electric mixer with whisk attachment, beat the egg whites, confectioners’ sugar, cream of tartar and salt on medium-low speed until blended.
- Add the vanilla.
- Increase the speed to medium-high, and continue beating until stiff peaks form.
- Remove the bowl from the mixer, cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to use up to 6 hours.
[…] table feature sweet and salty ends. On the sweet end I’ve got my gingerbread cookies with royal icing, my snowballs (or Russian Tea cakes, however you want to call them), as well as all the baked […]