Royal Icing

A friend of mine is having her son's first birthday today!! So she asked that I make a couple of things for her. One of the things she wanted was baseball themed sugar cookies. Here is the finished product. I'm actually super happy with how they turned out. Especially since this is my first attempt at decorating sugar cookies. It was lots of fun. I will for sure be making Halloween sugar cookies now that I'm not so intimidated by the idea of decorating the cookies.

There is definitely some technique involved though. I found that the more I piped, the steadier my hand got, which is pretty important for pretty cookies. Here is a quick picture of how to pipe and flood your cookie {I used a Wilton #3 tip for the piping}. Your piping icing is going to be a good amount thicker then your flooding. A word of advice though. When making your icing, add the water SLOWLY!! You can always add more water, but it is hard to get back to a thicker consistency after you've already thinned the icing too much. I started out by adding 1/4 a cup instead of 1/2 like the recipe says, and then added water as I went.

Also, remember to have fun with this. If you are like me and this is your first time decorating sugar cookies, really your gonna learn what you like and don't by trial and error. I had to remove frosting from my piping bag three different times to add more water just to get the consistency I wanted. So take a breath, turn on some relaxing music, and zen out. Don't let yourself get frustrated or else you are going to hate this! Another thing I did was instead of the almond extract which I added to my sugar cookies for the flavoring, I used clear vanilla extract. I love how they turned out. You get the almond from the sugar cookies and the vanilla in the icing. They really complimented each other really well, but do what you like. And as always, Enjoy :)


Cooled Basic Sugar Cookies


Royal Icing

• 4 cups (440 grams) confectioners' sugar, sifted
• 3 tablespoons (30 grams) meringue powder
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract (optional)
• 1/2 cup - 3/4 cup (120 - 180 ml) warm water
• Food Coloring (can be found at cake decorating or party stores)

In the bowl of you electric mixer (or with a hand mixer), beat the sugar and meringue powder until combined. Add the water and beat on medium/high speed until glossy and stiff peaks form (about 5 minutes). If necessary, to get the right consistency, add more powdered sugar or water. Add food coloring , if desired. To cover the entire surface of the cookie with icing, the proper consistency is when you lift the beater, the ribbon of icing that falls back into the bowl remains on the surface of the icing for a few seconds before disappearing. The icing needs to be used immediately or transferred to an airtight container as it hardens when exposed to air.

Printable Recipe

Recipe from joyofbaking.com