Easy Royal Icing Recipe

Happy Holidays!  December is finally here and that means it’s time for some serious cookie baking! Here is my mom’s classic Royal Icing recipe that so many of you have requested. It’s easy to work with, sets quickly and will  have a nice texture when it dries.  Use this classic royal icing recipe for both flooding and outlining your Christmas cookies.

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Royal Icing Ingredients:

• 4 cups (Domino confectioners’ sugar, sifted
• 3 Tablespoons meringue powder (not plain egg white powder)
• 9–10 Tablespoons room temperature light cream (water is optional but it cream adds a richer flavor
• 1 Teaspoon pure vanilla extract (you can also add your own flavor variations instead of vanilla) but make sure it does not have oil because it will break down the icing.
• food coloring

How To Make Royal Icing:

1. Combine all of your ingredients into a large bowl using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat icing ingredients together on high speed for 1.5 – 2 minutes. The icing on the whisk should have stiff peaks as shown in the photo below, if not keep going but keep in mind the long you whisk the icing the thicker it will become.
2. If icing becomes too thick, just add a little more cream to achieve the desired consistency.
3. Divide your frosting into 2 bowls, color as desired. One will be your outline icing, the other will be your flooding icing.
4. Add a bit of cream or water until the icing achieves a drizzle effect off your spoon.
5. Decorate your cookies! Use your stiff icing for outlining and your thinner icing for flooding and filling.

Once applied to cookies the icing will dry in about 2 hours at room temperature. Enjoy! I hope you found this recipe helpful, if so share it and also see my recipe for Buttery Soft Sugar Cookies!