Royal icing is so much easier to make than it seems. For years I came up with new ways to decorate cookies that did not involve icing because I found it so intimidating. It’s only recently that I started using it and I’ll never look back. Here is a recipe and step-by-step on how to make Royal Icing:

Place all 3 ingredients in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment:

Mix on slow speed for a minute to wet the dry ingredients or they’ll fly all over the kitchen =):

Turn to high speed and mix for 8 minutes. It seems like a long time but trust me. The mixture will start to thicken up and look more and morel like icing:

Done!

Now here is how to color it: Spoon some icing in a glass measuring cup (I use glass instead of plastic because the inside surface is all smooth making it much easier to mix).

Add food coloring with toothpicks (easy to add a tiny bit at a time). Here I used copper brown. :

 Mix until the color is even. Make sure to scrape the sides and bottom:

The key to good royal icing is consistency. You need it to be liquid enough to flow and give you a smooth coat but you want it to be thick enough to stay relatively put when piped so it doesn’t drip off the cookie. Here is a trick to get it right:

Drag your spoon in the icing:

Now count how many seconds it takes for the icing to get back to a smooth top.

You want to be at around 20 seconds. If it takes longer, add a tiny bit of water, mix and try again. If it takes less than 20 seconds, mix the icing for a few minutes to thicken it up and try again.

That’s it! Easy, right?

Happy Baking!!!