I am always looking for a simple white royal icing for decorating cookies. This recipe seems to be the one I always turn to in a pinch and it comes out great!
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This simple white royal icing recipe is perfect for decorating Christmas cookies, Halloween cookies, Valentine’s Day Cookies, Back To School cookies, and, of course, gingerbread men – or gingerbread skeletons.
I don’t always get into tinting the icing any fancy colors – we often stick with basic white and it looks great! Also, less mess.
To make royal icing, you really need meringue powder. I buy mine at Michael’s in the cake decorating section.
After watching weeks of holiday cookie decorating contests on the Food Network with my kids last winter, I decided to use some corn syrup in my royal icing this time and I loved it! I think it made it a little bit shinier and gave the icing a crisp finish when it dried.
I really want this post to be more informative, but it’s really pretty straightforward. Short and sweet. Comment below if you have any questions!
White Royal Icing
White Royal Icing
This simple recipe for royal icing is perfect for decorating all kinds of cookies!
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 T meringue powder
- 3 T warm water
- 1/2 T light corn syrup
- 2 C powdered sugar
- Water - as needed
Instructions
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Combine meringue powder and warm water until dissolved. Beat for about 1 minute. Add powdered sugar and corn syrup. Mix at medium speed for about five minutes. Remove a small amount of royal icing to a small bowl and add a little bit of water - drop by drop - until it's the consistency you want. Don't try to get all the royal icing to the same consistency at the same time.
Recipe Notes
If you are planning on piping some designs on your cookies, you will want your royal icing to be a little bit thick. After you pipe your designs, you can thin out your royal icing a little bit more so you can flood your designs to fill in the empty spaces. It's up to you! We mainly just piped designs on our gingerbread men and did very little flooding. Make sure that any royal icing that you are not using stays covered! It will dry out quickly! Store extra royal icing with a layer of plastic wrap touching the icing and then cover the entire container. Store in the fridge.
A few of my favorite cookie recipes …
Soft gluten-free gingerbread cookies
Super Simple No-Chill Sugar Cookies
Quick and Easy Rolled Sugar Cookies
