The Christmas Table: Christmas recipes and tutorials A celebration of all things Christmas! | Seite 11

Royal Icing

T

ips for making the perfect royal icing, both
for soft-peak royal icing and run-out icing.

Ingredients:
2 medium egg whites or 15g (½oz)
dried egg albumen powder mixed
with 75ml (2½fl oz) water
500g (1lb 2oz) icing (confectioners’)
sugar

Directions
If using dried egg powder, soak it in the water for at least 30
minutes in advance, but ideally overnight in the fridge.
Sift the icing sugar into the bowl of a large electric mixer and
add the egg whites or strained reconstituted egg mixture.
Mix together on a low speed for about 3–4 minutes until the
icing has reached a stiff-peak consistency, which is what you
need for sticking on decorations and gluing cakes together.
Store the icing in an airtight container covered with a damp,
clean cloth to prevent it from drying out.

Soft-peak royal icing
To pipe decorations easily, you may need to add a tiny amount of water to your royal icing to soften
it slightly.

Run-out icing
Royal icing is thinned down with water to ‘flood’ cookies (see Royal-Iced Cookies). Test for consistency
by lifting your spoon and letting the icing drip back into the bowl – it should remain on the surface for
5 seconds before disappearing. If it’s too runny it will run over the outlines and sides of the cookies,
but if it’s too stiff it won’t spread very well.