Royal icing is a versatile cake decorating icing that can be used for creating decorative toppings for your cake and can also be used as edible “glue” because it hardens and lasts indefinitely.

Confectioner’s sugar, a little water and meringue powder is used to create royal icing and glycerin can be added to soften it when you do not want the icing to turn to a hardened consistency. You can add flavoring to royal icing as well as tint it in various colors. The best way to add the color is to use a food coloring gel or paste, dip a small toothpick or straw in the color and then dip into the icing and stir. This will give you the most control over creating a certain hue of a color you are adding.

Tips to Remember

Royal icing is often used as the “glue” for gingerbread houses and as decoration for cookies that will want to last indefinitely.  For cakes, you can trace a design on wax paper and then trace over it with a thick layer of royal icing. Once the design dries, you can gently peel it off to place on the cake. You can also create frosting flowers which will harden and last a while.

It is important to remember that with royal icing, it can get soft if you are in a high humidity area or if it comes into contact with anything greasy like butter or oil.  Therefore, be sure that your cake decorating utensils are clean and free of any oily residue.

You can make royal icing in advance of when you need it.  The key is to how you store it so that it retains the consistency for your decorating needs.  Store your royal icing made with meringue powder in an airtight container at room temperature. If you use actual raw egg whites, you must store the royal icing in the refrigerator.

If you plan to use the royal icing soon for your decorating project, cover the bowl housing the icing with a damp towel, but nothing that drips water.  This damp towel will lock in the moisture inside the bowl which is needed to prevent the royal icing from forming a crust.  Once a crust is formed, the royal icing is not easy to manipulate or use.

While royal icing is not the best bet for actually icing an entire cake, it is certainly a great tool for creating some interesting and tasty decorations for it.  As long as you follow the instructions on making it and storing it, you should have no problems with using it.

Click Here For More Cake Decorating Information

Tags: Cake Decorating, cake icing technique, Royal Icing

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 23rd, 2008 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Cake Icing Techniques. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.