The Best Royal Icing Recipe For Cookies
- Trendy Mint
- Jul 30, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: Nov 2, 2024
What is the Best Easy Royal Icing Recipe for Cookie Decorating?
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As much as I love rolled buttercream (I really really do), there are times when only royal icing will do!
Like when you want that big puffy look to your lettering or other details, when you need your cookies to stay fresh longer than several days or if you have a detailed design and no mold or stamp will do. That’s why I turned to royal icing for these peter rabbit baby shower cookies. I think they turned out adorable.
Some people have had bad royal icing and they are completely turned off by the thought but I would beg them to try MY royal icing recipe. It is delicious! In fact, my customers that have always had my royal icing recipe for cookies, are afraid to venture out and try the buttercream I now offer.
Yes, it’s that good.
The first time I ever made royal icing was long before I was running a home bakery. I didn’t have a stand-mixer and my icing was so thick and I was beating it for so long the motor on the little Farberware hand mixer burned up.
Midway through mixing my icing, my hand mixer completely quit on me.
Not to mention that the little mixer had already flung icing onto every seeable surface in my kitchen. I’m pretty sure my kitchen was never the same. And I still had no idea what I was doing.
Let this be your statement of caution:
Making this royal icing recipe for cookies is going to take some horsepower!
I refuse to use my Kitchenaid mixer for my royal icing. I don’t ever want to ruin either of them.
This is a video of me making royal icing in real time. It is a very detailed video where I go over every detail of making this silky wonderful icing. I talk about each ingredient in detail. I also show you my mixing bowl the whole time so you can see exactly what my icing looks like every step of the way.
It is important to take your time making this recipe, you can't rush it and have good results.
The first kitchenaid mixer that I was given belonged to my grandmother. I'm unsure how old it is but it's old enough that it doesn't have a 3-prong wall plug-in. It is in fantastic shape and runs like a champ!
And my second kitchenaid was given to me by my parents. Apparently, my dad felt bad that I was using such an old mixer and thought I needed an upgrade. He was always looking out for me!
My CookLee mixer is the mixer that I love to make royal icing in, it will make a double batch of the recipe below with no problem at all. It’s a work mixer, that is for certain. It’s usually on sale on Amazon with coupons! And I just love the bright pop of pink in my kitchen! It has a large bowl, 9.5 quarts and a powerful motor! When I compared this mixer to KitchenAid and some commercial mixers, the specs on the CookLee mixer was a no-brainer choice and I have loved it!
I love the splatter guard that came with this mixer and it has feet that keep the mixer in place, even when mixing a full bowl of batter or icing! It came with a whisk, paddle and hook attachments which work great and are excellent quality.
If you're looking for a work-horse of a mixer, you can't go wrong with this one! There are so many colors to choose from and I love how the speed-dial lights up also!
There are only a few ingredients to my royal icing recipe but each one is critically needed to have fantastic end results. Let’s have a little chat about them.
Water
I use room-temperature - mildly warm water to activate my meringue powder.
Meringue Powder
For the longest time, I used Wilton Meringue Powder until it was out of stock at my local store which is when I switched to Genie’s Dream Meringue Powder and it has been a definite game-changer!
I’ve heard some people say that they don’t see any difference when they use Genie’s but I definitely did. I found that it is more of a silky smooth, puffy texture and it pipes smoother and lays better than the Wilton brand did.
It does cost more than Wilton’s but to me it’s worth it. But by all means, if you’re just starting out with royal icing, get the small tub of Wilton’s and give it a go. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
The Best Vanilla Extract
I think the type of vanilla that I use is my secret ingredient as to why my cookies are so dang good! And you should feel special because I’m letting the secret out, here is a link to my absolute most favorite vanilla. It is so yummy and smells amazingly warm!
Vanilla Royal Icing is my go-to flavor because it pairs well with all types of flavors like, chocolate, gingerbread or lemon. But feel free to replace the vanilla with any extract you prefer. Try lemon or orange to top a lemon cookie or a maple extract for icing gingerbread cookies. That sounds delicious!
Corn Syrup
I know, I know, corn syrup gets a bad rep but this is what will make your royal icing have a soft-bite instead of being hard and crunch. I’ve used various brands of caro syrup and am convinced that they all worked the same. Just use whatever your store has as long as it’s the clear one, you should be golden.
Icing Sugar / Confectioners Sugar / Powdered Sugar
Use whatever brand is available at your store, I don’t notice any difference when I have switched brands in the past so I just use the store brand from Walmart. You can sift it if you want but I never do and I don’t have any issues.
The Best Easy Royal Icing Recipe For Cookies
with Meringue Powder and Corn Syrup
Will Ice 6 dozen cookies
(recipe can be halved)
Ingredients:
1/4 cup meringue powder
1/2 cup warm water
Mix these together until foamy and it peaks when you pull the beater straight out of it. It will take several minutes.
2 T Vanilla (you can change this to whatever flavor extract you would like)
1/2 cup Corn Syrup
2 tsp White Food Color Gel
Add these into the mixture slowly while mixing. Beat until it’s glossy and fluffy with stiff peaks.
2 -2 pound bag of powdered sugar
½ cup warm water (possibly more)
Add in half of the bag of powdered sugar at first, start mixing. If your mixer sounds like it’s working super hard or if the icing appears to be very thick and mostly in a big ball, add in a couple tablespoons of water at a time. Then alternate between the rest of the bag of powdered sugar and water.
Note: You’ll want your icing to be thick when finished because it’s likely you’ll want a thick consistency for outlining or detailed piping plus if you are adding and coloring, this will also thin down your icing a little.
If you're looking for a sugar cookie recipe, try this one: https://sugarspunrun.com/easy-sugar-cookie-recipe/, it is very similar to the one I use and will give you great results!
Sometimes I seem to get stuck in a rut with my cookie-decorating, this is a great list to keep on hand of different decorating techniques you can use with royal icing:
Avoiding Air Bubbles in Royal Icing
After completely mixing your royal icing, mix on the slowest speed with the paddle attachment for several minutes. This will help work out some of the air pockets.
Let your royal icing rest before bagging it or mixing colors. You'll notice you have many air bubbles that surface. Glide the back of a spatula over the royal icing to pop the air bubbles.
When mixing your gel food coloring into your icing, use a small spatula or something that does not have a cupped area to it (no spoons). Air bubbles are more likely to form when you use a spoon to mix due to the cupping of the spoon.
After you put your icing in your piping bags, helicopter the bag. You can see a demonstration of this in the video above but it's exactly what it sounds like. Firmly hold the top of the icing bag and twirl it in a helicopter motion. This will cause the air to move to the top of your icing bag and it will move your icing into the tip of the piping bag.
And there you have it! You've made royal icing. Pat yourself on the back, put your feet up and adjust your crown like the royal queen you are!
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