Royal icing decoration is a special technique that is used to decorate cookies, cupcakes even simple cakes. Based on the whites of eggs and powdered sugar you just make a creamy mixture which is an icing to be used most preferably in icing bags and with various nozzles.
What is mainly important while using royal icing is your hand's stability to act. The main purpose while using the icing, is to manage covering successfully the entire part of a cookie, Further to this and following the talents that each one hides, you could even draw with the icing... There are artists doing miracles with it.I wouldn't consider myself as a person who has used a lot the icing to decorate. But recently and after a very interesting seminar with the GK cookies author, I realized that I would like to explore my talent on it so I promised myself to work with royal icing more often in the future. It's true that decorating with sugar paste is easier and sometimes quicker definitely but the artistic result that the royal provides is unbelievable. Especially when you ofter use it.
After having baked your own cookies (you may find my recipe for cookies in this blog), make your Royal Icing recipe (link extracted from GK cookies, where you will find as well many tutorials and techniques to use with the royal icing). Pay attention to the details of the recipe concerning the density of your mixture produced.
I would consider all the below instructions mostly as tips. Following the way I used it so far I am giving you my personal experience and ideas about making cookies with royal icing. I do believe that seminars and some educational tutorials would enable you as well to work finely with this incredible mixture.
For making colors I use paste colors. You have to generally pay attention because color reaction is not the same like in sugar paste. What I mean is that, after a while, colors become stronger and tense, so depending on what you basically wish to have as result, try to apply at first with a toothpick a really small quantity of color to your icing, mix with a spoon and see what it produces. Let it react for at least some time. Even half an hour. If you wish to have it really tense then add a little more.
If it is the first time you make and use royal icing, I would suggest you to always have with you kitchen paper, a simple syringe with water in order to drop water a whilee (when you need your icing to be a little bit more liquid), many toothpicks to "play with colors", different nozzles and icing bags (you can easily find on various sites with paste material on the internet or special shops dealing with sugar paste and pastry). When you are organized with all these little tools then you can easier work with your designs. A tip for those who have no bags or nozzles and wish to cover simply with royal icing their cookies (like the two little snowmen below): you could use a little spoon as well. Very elegantly and slowly try to cover the top area of your cookies (starting from the edges and then covering the inside), without living spaces and at the same time trying to have same density in the whole top surface. If you don't use the same quantity of royal to the surface, while hardened it will show inbalanced coverage. That's why it's better to have icing bag and try to work with it instead of a spoon. Unless you wish to try simple at your beginning.
Initially what you need first before fully covering, is to create an outline. This will assist you in your next step to color your cookie on the inside of the surface.
While applying the royal icing on the total surface, it is possible to have some gaps here and there. It is normal. All you can easily do is use a toothpick and try to cover with the color surrounded the empty short points. At the end, shake your cookie with the icing. This will enable all surface to have equal quantity of icing and look fully covered.
In case your royal icing is running from the edges of your cookie, this means either you cover with a lot your surface or your icing is too liquid. In such case you have options: you can take off all the icing covered and restart after having well cleaned the surface with a paper. Another option is to try with a toothpick to give a shape by collecting from the edges and the sides the remaining icing dropped. If your icing is still dropping then is too liquid.
And yet, if you are expert or if you wish to make something different hopefully you still have time till Christmas to order these amazing stencils exclusively fabricated by Evil Genius (Gateaux Inc).
I used them for the first time and to be honest I adored them. Easy to use, amazing result. In fact, what you see is applied with red color on sugar paste. With a simple vintage result, you may impress your friends and family and make your own little sweet memories on table... Check out their site and e-shop or check on facebook the easiest ever technique to use them. I will definitely order some more stencils to use the next months...
So this is one part of royal icing used in cookies. As you above see designs are not all ready yet. This means that you should wait for the second part... :)
It's not difficult to use the royal icing. But it definitely needs to work on the technique and stability of hand.
Love,
Les Delices d' Eleni
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