This is the only traditional royal icing I use. It’s my favorite because it’s easy to work with, sets quickly, and doesn’t require raw egg whites. And, best of all, it doesn’t have a hard cement-like texture. It won’t break your teeth like other royal icings!
Meringue Powder in Royal Icing
This royal icing is just 3 ingredients: confectioners’ sugar, meringue powder, and water. The trickiest part is landing on the perfect consistency, but I have a helpful video for you below. Sometimes I need more water, sometimes I need less water. But the wonderful thing is that you can manipulate the icing to get the proper consistency by adding more water or more confectioners’ sugar. It’s awesome.
Use This Royal Icing for Flooding and Piping
I use this one royal icing for both piping/outlining and flooding, like you see here on these Valentine’s Day cookies. The icing is thick enough to outline and thin enough to flood, which makes it super convenient.
Decorating Cookies
Here is the sugar cookies recipe you need. Soft centers, crisp edges, easy to decorate. You can also use this royal icing on chocolate sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, or as the glue for a gingerbread house. It’s perfect for making these adorable Easter cookies, fireworks cookies, watermelon sugar cookies, and Halloween cookies. And it can even be used to top homemade mille-feuille. If you’re a decorating beginner, here’s my How to Decorate Sugar Cookies page and video showing 4 simple, yet beautiful decorating techniques. For a full list of tools I use, see my top recommended cookie decorating supplies. The following is a good list to get started:
Couplers – needed if you’re using the same icing color, but need to switch tips. Or if you have multiple colors of icing and only 1 tip, and need to move the tip to the other bags of icing. Disposable Piping Bags or Reusable Piping Bags – I prefer the 16 inch size for decorating. Gel Food Coloring – get the whole set. I love these colors for royal icing, cake batter, frosting, etc. They’re high pigmented so you don’t need as much coloring. Piping Tips – see below. Or use a squeeze bottle for less detailed designs, or these icing bottles from Michaels. Toothpick – I use a toothpick to help spread out the icing. You could also just use the piping tip, too.
And some piping tips. I always use Wilton piping tip #4 for outlining and flooding the cookie with icing. This is a wonderful basic piping tip to have in your collection. For any detail, I use a thinner round tip like Wilton piping tip #1 (super thin) and Wilton piping tip #2 (thin). For larger round tips that are easier to work with, I suggest Wilton piping tip #3, Wilton piping tip #4, or Wilton piping tip #5. The piping tip #s reflect their sizes. #1 being the thinnest and #5 being the largest of this particular bunch. Just starting out with piping details? I suggest #1 (smallest), #3 (medium), and #5 (largest of the bunch). You can create anything basic with these three.
Royal Icing Consistency
After mixing the 3 icing ingredients together, lift the whisk attachment up. If the icing that drips off melts back into the bowl of icing within 5-10 seconds, you’re golden. If it’s too thick, add more water. If it’s super thin and watery, just keep beating it OR beat in more confectioners’ sugar.
Can I Freeze Royal Icing?
Yes, royal icing can be frozen. Many royal icing recipes, including this one, yield a lot of icing. Any leftover royal icing can be frozen for up to 2 months. Place leftover royal icing into zipped-top freezer bags. If you have more than 1 color, each color should have its own bag. Before sealing, squeeze as much air out of the bag as possible. Freeze on a flat shelf surface in your freezer. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature before using again. Sugar cookies decorated with royal icing freeze well up to 3 months. Wait for the icing to set completely before layering between sheets of parchment paper in a freezer-friendly container. To thaw, thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature.
How Can I Make Royal Icing Ahead of Time?
You can prepare this royal icing 2-3 days ahead of time. I recommend transferring it to a smaller bowl or container and tightly sealing for up to 3 days in the refrigerator. When you’re ready to use it, let it come to room temperature, then mix it up with a whisk a few times as it may have separated. Whisking in a few drops of water is helpful if it thickened.
Royal Icing Alternative
If you’d rather skip royal icing and try something easier, here’s my easy cookie icing. This opaque “glaze” style icing doesn’t set/dry as quickly as royal icing and it’s not ideal for piping sharp detail. That being said, sometimes it’s just the more convenient option! It will dry in about 24 hours, where the royal icing recipe below dries in about 1-2 hours. Here is my recipe for sugar cookies.
