I really loooove decorating sugar cookies. But the one thing I really dislike, well actually, the two things I dislike are; prepping (so baking, coloring the icing, and cleaning up) and I dislike how hard the royal icing actually dries at the end of the whole process. So I figured I share with you an optional way of making royal icing a bit more enjoyable and delicious.

Traditional Royal Icing

Traditional royal icing calls for a mixture of egg whites, water, and confectioners sugar, these ingredients mixed together are what makes the royal icing harden so that you’re able to use it to decorate cookies or even cakes. Royal Icing can also be made using meringue powder, water, confectioners sugar, and some sort of flavoring. Find my royal icing. recipe here. The only thing is that these traditional royal icing recipes harden very stiff and this sometimes makes it not enjoyable to eat the cookies. Let’s be honest.

How is this recipe different?

The main difference in this recipe is that we are adding fat to the recipe. The fat in this case will be 1 tablespoon of vegetable shortening. This will allow the icing to dry a little bit softer allowing you to have soft bites of your cookies, versus hard and dry royal icing. Another ingredient that I like to add to my royal icing recipes is corn syrup. So both of these ingredients together will help the icing be; chubby, shiny, and soft. Corn syrup and vegetable shortening will also make the royal icing take longer to dry, allowing you to make mistakes and being able to remove the icing easier than traditional royal icing.

Drying Time

Since this recipe does have vegetable shortening and corn syrup it will take longer to dry than the traditional royal icing recipes. Allow at least 24 hours to dry at room temperature before packaging your cookies. If you would like to speed up the process I recommend using a dehydrator at the lowest setting for approximately 45 minutes – 1 hour.

Soft Bite Royal Icing

Recipe by verycherrycakesCourse: cookiesDifficulty: beginner

Prep time

30

minutes

Ingredients

• 4 cups confectioners sugar

• 1/3 cup water

• 1/4 tsp almond extract

• 1 tsp clear vanilla

• 3 tablespoons meringue powder

• 1 tbsp vegetable shortening

• 1 tbsp corn syrup

Directions

• In a mixing bowl add in all ingredients, confectioners sugar, water, almond extract, clear vanilla, meringue powder, vegetable shortening, and corn syrup.
• Mix on low speed for approximately 3 minutes, then raise the speed to medium speed and continue to mix for an additional 5 minutes, until the ingredients incorporate
• You will notice that the icing is done when it doubles in size, becomes shiny, and puffy
• You can use the royal icing immediately, or store in an airtight container for later use.

Recipe Video

Notes

• remember that the original recipe will make stiff consistency royal icing, you must add water to thin down the icing to use it in different decorating techniques.
• since this royal icing recipe contains fat you can use oil based flavorings to flavor your icing.