Royal Icing

When wet, royal icing should appear glossy and smooth but as it sets it will become matte and hard. It’s the perfect ingredient for piping messages and patterns as well as attaching your decorations onto your cakes, you can even use it as an all over finish on your cakes instead of fondant.

Royal Icing sets hard thanks to the use of eggs within the mix, traditionally the recipe requires egg whites, lemon juice and icing sugar. However like most cake decorators, Sugar & Ice use a mixture called Merriwhite to create perfect royal icing every time. Merriwhite is powdered, sterilized egg whites which means that the risk of contamination of Salmonella from using fresh eggs is eliminated.

Sugar and Ice recommend creating royal icing with Merriwhite following this recipe:

1. Take one tablespoon of Merriwhite in a bowl and mix in four tablespoons of tap water.
2. Once combined, mix in enough icing sugar to achieve your desired thickness of royal icing.

When piping with royal icing it’s important to ensure your icing is very smooth and quite thick (not too thick that your burst your piping bag though!). If you make your icing too thick you can always add a splash more water to thin it out.

The best way to store royal icing is in a good airtight container, this will stop the top of the icing from drying out. If you are concerned your airtight container isn’t great you can place some cling film directly on top of the icing to work as a protective seal.

Check out our practice piping sheets which you can print of and use at home.

Please note that as royal icing contains eggs it is not suitable for vegans, lacto vegetarians and those with egg allergies.