Royal Icing

Servings 2 cups

Ingredients

4 cups powdered sugar
5 tbsp water room temperature
1/4 cup wilton meringue powder
1 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions

Wipe down your stand mixer bowl and whisk attachment with lemon juice before starting to eliminate any fat.
Place the sugar, water, meringue powder and vanilla in the bowl of your stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Set the mixer to low speed and mix until everything is well combined, then increase the speed to high. Beat until stiff peaks have formed- about 6 minutes with a stand mixer or 10-15 minutes with a hand mixer.
Cover and let the icing sit for approximately 15 minutes to allow any excess air bubbles to rise to the surface. The icing will be at a stiff consistency at this point. Store any unused icing in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.

Notes

STIFF CONSISTENCY

Some decorations require a stiff consistency for piping things like flowers, transfers, and outlines. Stiff consistency icing will form a stiff point on the beater when pulled out of the bowl.

FLOODING CONSISTENCY

Flooding consistency icing is ideal for filling in large areas of cookies and is thinner than stiff consistency icing.

Add 1 teaspoon of water at a time to the stiff icing and stir gently. Scoop up some of the icing onto a spoon-if it sinks back down and becomes invisible within 10 seconds, it has reached flooding consistency.

If you add too much water and the icing has become runny, add 1 tablespoon of sifted powdered sugar and test again. Be sure to cover the icing immediately with plastic wrap after preparing.

Find the meringue powder I used here

This recipe in my cookbook