Royal Icing

Decorating cookies is a personal passion of mine. I love how I can be creative and play with the design of the cookie. I field a lot of questions from people asking me for a better recipe that tastes good - this is usually always the reason they don't use royal icing because of the taste. I know when I first started trying to perfect my icing techniques I was using a recipe from a well-known lifestyle expert that called for lemon juice, I thought it tasted awful and did not compliment my cookie flavor at all. My recipe uses meringue powder instead of egg whites due not only to ease, but also possible health concerns regarding uncooked egg whites. Meringue powder is readily available at many stores. I set out to develop a recipe that melded with the cookie creating a flavor that was comforting. Use this recipe to form the walls of your cookie, then thin it out for flooding.

Royal Icing recipe

2 lbs (1 bag)

1/2 cup meringue powder

2/3 cup water (plus more to attain consistency desired)

1 tsp vanilla (regular or clear)

1 1/2 tsp butter flavoring

1/2 tsp almond extract

Place half of the powdered sugar, meringue powder, water and flavorings into the bowl of your mixer with paddle attachment. Turn mixer on medium and mix until well combined. Add remaining powdered sugar and mix well. Adjust ments to the amount of powdered sugar may be necessary depending on the time of year and humidity levels. The photo shown is how it should look when it is done.