Royal Icing like a pro!

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.

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

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!

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?