Royal Icing Recipe

Royal icing is extremely popular in the baking world. With royal icing, you can smoothly frost a cake, you can make stiff peaks or corners, or you can make small edible cake decorations or pieces.

Royal icing is typically made of beaten egg whites and sugar. The water binds the sugar and egg whites. Oh, I almost forgot. Meringue powder? It’s just egg whites, a little sugar, and some gum base—no worries.

Royal icing has the tendency to “air crust” if left out, uncovered, for more than a couple minutes. When on a cake, this came make it really easy to smooth your cake.

Wait… we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s just take a look at this royal icing recipe for starters!

Yield: 3 cups

Ingredients:

• 3 level tablespoons meringue powder
• 4 cups sifted powered sugar
• 6 tablespoons water

Directions:

1) Beat all ingredients for 10 to 12 minutes on high speed until icing forms stiff peaks. Add small amount of flavoring if desired (almond, vanilla, lemon, etc.) but only AFTER you beat it.

2) Use paste colors or powder food color to color the icing. (Liquid drops can thin out your icing and make it runny.)

See… this royal icing recipe is easy enough. Royal icing typically stores for about 2 weeks in an airtight container at room temperature. Be sure to stir all of the ingredients back together if you don’t use the using immediately because they have the tendency to separate a bit.

If you choose to make roses, flowers, pearls, or any other hardened decoration, it will store for up to four months! The funny thing is that even after all of that… they will still taste delicious with this yummy royal icing recipe!

Smoothing Royal Icing

Working with royal icing can be a royal pain to get it super smooth, but compared to fondant, I’d take royal icing any day! With royal icing there are two major tips to remember to result in the smoothest cake possible.

For those of you who wish you could have a cake as smooth as the cakes on TV… well, you can! The first tip to remember when smoothing royal icing is that you can’t forget the crumb coat. A crumb coat seals in the freshness of your cake and contains the crumb sunder a thin layer of hard icing.

In addition to the crumb coating you need a print-less paper towel (I love Viva)! You see, cake decorating is all about knowing what tool to use for what job. Even tools you wouldn’t usually see in a kitchen, you may find work the best! You just have to know where to look and what to look for.

So after you have your crumb coat, you can frost the cake with the rest of the thinker frosting. Always start with more frosting then you think you’ll need and pile it on the top of your cake. Smooth it out with a spatula or rubber scraper, working in circles and working down the cake to the bottom.

Once your cake is completely frosted, you then let a light “air crust” form. This keeps the paper towel from sticking when you use it on the next stage.

After the “air crust” has formed, you can lay a smooth paper towel on the cake. Press lightly and use two fingers to smooth the paper towel onto the cake. Work in circles, back and forth, any way you want to have the smoothest finish you can! When you think the cake is smooth, lift up the paper towel and repress it in a spot you haven’t yet smoothed. Repeat the same process.

Once you get the hang of smoothing it with a print-less paper towel, you can experiment with printed paper towels. Fun designs on paper towels can look so unique on top of a cake. And who would have thought that it was all done with a simple paper towel!