Merry Christmas!
Today we baked sugar cookies and made royal icing for the kids to decorate their own Christmas cookies. It was my first time making icing and the consistency turned out perfect for icing cookies. I figured it would be great to share the recipe with you.
Royal Icing Recipe
Yield: 12 bags of icing
INGREDIENTS
• 1.25 cups meringue powder
• 2.5 cups water
• 7 lb powdered sugar
• 1 tsp cream of tartar
OPTIONAL INGREDIENTS
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tbsp
• 1 pinch of salt
DIRECTIONS
1 Combine the meringue powder and water and mix together with a whisk until well combined.
2 Strain the meringue mixture directly into the mixing bowl.
3 Add about ⅔ of the powdered sugar and combine with the meringue powder mixture using the whisk attachment. (A note about sifting: use a fresh bag to avoid sifting but if you have an open bag/older powdered sugar sifting is a good option to avoid lumps)
4 Add lemon juice, maple extract, salt, corn syrup, and cream of tartar.
5 Switch to the paddle attachment and mix for 5 minutes at medium speed. The icing should appear lighter and shiny.
6 Add additional powdered sugar 1 cup at a time until you reach your desired consistency. You may need to add less or more based on consistency.
Tips for Icing Cookies
Flooding Consistency: When the icing is drizzled on a surface it should stay in place and not run. Any peaks should settle to form a smooth surface. You can test this off the cookie by making an outline on parchment paper and then filling it in with icing, just like you would fill a cookie. If using the ribbon test, the ribbon should disappear in 10 seconds. You can adjust the consistency of icing by adding small amounts of water to thin it out or small amounts of powdered sugar to thicken it.