Cousins Confectionery

The title of this post is a little misleading because, although it will include a royal icing recipe, it is mainly going to be about how to get different royal icing consistencies and the techniques you can achieve with them. First thing is first though… what are the ingredients needed?

• 4 Cups of Powdered Sugar
• 3 T of Meringue Powder
• Water (about 6T but it varies)

This recipe can be found on just about every container of meringue powder, doesn’t matter the brand. What you will not find on those containers is descriptions on how to achieve different royal icing consistencies and what to look out for. Instructions are simple…

1. Mix powdered sugar and meringue powder in a mixer
2. add water
3. When sugar and water are completely incorporated, turn the mixer up to 10 for about 15 seconds
4. Adjust consistency as you would like (some tips below)

These instructions will get some people where they need to go but if we want to decorate some fancy cookies we will need to know a little more. First off are some simple tips to ensure that you don’t get too many air bubbles in your icing. Air bubbles can cause all sorts of problems with royal icing including problematic drying times, weird consistencies, and (most obvious) air bubbles in your cookies. So here are a few simple rules…

• Use a paddle attachment on your mixer NOT the whisk
• Use a low mix speed (my mixer has speeds from 1-10, do not not go above a 2 for icing except for a short period of time as stated above)
• Don’t over mix (if you are worried about icing in your bowl drying out while you are mixing color, place a damp towel over the icing that you are not using to keep it from drying, instead of leaving the mixer running)

On to consistency! The consistency of the icing will depend on what you want to do with it. If you want to use it to create the background of the cookie you want a flood (a really runny consistency). If you want to use it for working with a stencil you will need a very stiff consistency. Then there is a range for the middle! I have included a table that shows each type of consistency and how I used/achieved it, keep scrolling for some picture examples.

After mixing icing, I like to take a spatula and let the icing drip back down into the bowl usually in a line (see 1st picture), depending on how it drips determines which consistency I achieve.

Stiff Icing

White: flood consistency, also used a medium consistency for the initial outline

Light Pink: flood consistency

Dark Pink: between medium and piping consistency

White: Flood

Black: Stiff