Royal Icing

Combine egg whites and lemon juice in a large bowl. Add some of the sifted icing sugar to the mixture and start the mixer.

Keep adding icing sugar a little at a time. When the mixture looks like thick whipped cream and makes soft peaks when you push down the hooks/paddle in it, you can use it for piping.

When you have the soft peak icing, you start to only add 2 tbsp of icing sugar at a time because from now on the icing will get more and more stiff. When you can pull out small stif peaks the icing is ready. Cover the icing with cling film and a lid or wet cloth and store it in the fridge.

If you want to make runny icing for flooding cookies or making run-outs then take some royal icing (stiff made) into a bowl and start mixing it with water, a few drops at the time. Continue this until the icing it thin and liquid. It should be smoothing out when you lift the spoon. The mixing with the water will most likely cause many air bubbles in the icing, so it is always good to cover up the icing and let it “rest” for 30 min. Then give it a slow stir and you have reduced the amount of air bubbles in your icing.

As mentioned before royal icing is great for flooding cookies. See my how to flood cookies with royal icing tutorial to learn this decorating technique.