Edible Artists Network Magazine Fall 2015 | Page 9

SUGGESTIONS ON PREPARING ROYAL ICING
Royal icing is made from egg whites and icing sugar with a drop of lemon juice and glycerine
(depending on what you are creating).
If royal icing comes into contact with anything that contains fat such as buttercream, ganache, etc.,
it will breakdown and will not be suitable for use.
There are so many approaches to making royal icing, so whether you are using royal icing made with
pasteurized egg whites, meringue powder or an instant royal icing mix, it is very important to
make sure that all equipment you are using, i.e. food mixers, piping tips, palette knife, are grease free.
Once mixed, you can color royal Icing to your desired shades using liquids or gels.
Some gels contain glycerine. Adding powder colors directly to royal icing could result in clogged piping tips.

FREE HAND PIPING RIGHT HANDED — FREE HAND PIPING LEFT HANDED
The piping patterns demonstrated can be adapted for either right-handed cake decorators
as well as left-handed cake decorators.
Since the techniques demonstrated embrace the old school bakery approach, realistically you have to
experiment to find out which way works best for you.

Left
handed
piping
position

Right
handed
piping
position

To start the project pattern which direction do I pipe my Royal Icing?

Left to right for right handed piping

Right to left for left handed piping

1. Using a piping bag filled with your desired color of royal icing and fitted with a large star tip,
pipe a spiral pattern. This pattern is known as a ‘barrel scroll’.
(David demonstrates with the right handed approach).

DAVID
SUGGESTS:
Use a firmer
consistency of
Royal icing when
piping large
patterns.