Royal Icing Cake Decorating Techniques

It looks like you are here to understand the royal icing cake decorating techniques and satisfy your taste buds and eyes with the level it has. You would find the best cake shop using this technique, and they anyhow bring the best out of it.

Well, if you are here to know whether you should use raw egg whites or not, what would be its consistency, how to make it and how to use royal icing cake decorating, then you are at the right place.

royal icing cake decorating

For beginners, the royal icing cake decorating technique might be a little tricky. You might want to use it in designer cakes, cookies, cupcakes, fondant cakes or chocolate cakes online, but you need to be well accomplished with the basics, and it will help you use the best icing cake decorating techniques quickly.

So let’s move forward and understand the royal icing cake decorating techniques in bits and pieces. Do not worry! You would get all your answers royal icing cake decorating under this blog.

Instructions - Step by Step of How to Prepare Royal Icing? Ingredients Require

1/4th cup powdered egg whites or meringue powder

Half a cup of lukewarm water

1 lb powdered sugar

1 tsp of extract optional

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Instructions - Royal Icing Cake Decorating

1. Take a stand mixer, mix lukewarm water that is just slightly warm to touch with meringue powder or powdered egg whites.

2. Whip the mixture on high and scrape the sides as no residual powder should remain there

3. As you want your royal icing cake decorating to be lump free, use a water bottle to spray at the sides while scraping. It will dissolve the powder.

4. Add powdered sugar to a bowl and use the machine on medium. Stop every 2-3 minutes to scrape and dissolve the mixture thoroughly.

5. If you consider adding flavours, then add it in between you stop for scraping.

6. Now, mix the royal icing cake decorating to the consistency you desire to have for your cake.

7. If you wish to stiffen it, do not forget to add drops of water in between and have different consistency accordingly.

Don’t you think preparing the best icing cake decorating is not that challenging?

Meringue Powder vs Powdered Egg Whites

If you think about the most suitable one to prepare royal icing cake decorating, let us tell you that both are interchangeable and can be used equally, but if you want to know what these two contain, then powdered egg whites are just the dried egg whites.

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Meringue powder is made of an egg, but it has corn start, citric acid, calcium sulphate, egg whites, sugar, flavouring, silicon dioxide, gum arabic, and cream of Tatar. Both give solid royal icing cake decorating as we desire to have.

What Consistency Should Be There

When we talk about what consistency should be there, we need to keep in mind that the consistency of royal icing cake decorating varies from product to product.

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Like a cake would need a different texture, and a cookie would need another. Still, let’s see what the other types of consistency are and how they can be used.

20-Second Icing

This is the icing that comes in between flood icing and piping icing. It is a go-to consistency of royal icing cake decorating. It takes 20-second to reabsorb when you take a spoonful full of it, and it drops back to the bowl. So you take it out and return back to a smooth texture. It can be used as wet-on-wet, royal icing transfers and filling or covering the cake.

Flood Icing

As the name suggests, Flood icing is the thinnest royal icing cake decorating technique that can be used for flooding outlined areas. This royal icing is around 10-12 seconds consistent and is used to fill the designs primarily via the piping bag.

Piping Icing

If you want to pipe borders or outline the cake, this medium consistency is a perfect fit. It is like a soft serving ice cream that holds a soft peak and doesn’t spread while piping.

Stiff Icing

As the name suggests, the thickest royal icing cake decorating to use. Stiff icing has a frosting-like texture that can’t be spread and is best to create intricate designs like flowers, succulent plants or something else.

Now you know the different types of consistency used as royal icing cake decorating techniques and for other products or designs.

How to Colour Royal Icing?

It is not at all challenging to colour royal icing, but there should be some things to keep in mind while you colour the royal icing cake decorating.

Always prefer to use gel food colour instead of liquid food colouring that might affect the royal icing consistency.

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Mix a lighter tone than what you expect the outcome because as the royal icing dries, it becomes darker.

You should use highly pigmented food colouring for royal icing cake decorating as some colours like red and black are hard to mix.

As royal icing dries and darkens the colour, it is challenging to get the same colour if you do not have enough royal icing cake decorating in the same colour. So, always make more than expected.

How to Decorate with Royal Icing?

As you are well aware of making the royal icing cake decorating, now let’s see how to use it as decorating techniques.

Do you need any design on your cake or cookies, then beforehand, outline with a marker or food pen.

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Once done, now take a piping bag and fill the royal icing into it. Next, use the pipe to apply icing to the cake.

Take a big glass and place a piping bag into it. Invert it and use the top bottom of the sides to hold the piping bag in place.

To work the icing into place, use the quilling or toothpick. Also, tapping once or twice would help to settle it.

If air bubbles are formed, then use quilling or a toothpick for popping them.

Do not add additional decoration or pack it before it is cooled completely.

So, this is how you decorate the cake royal icing cake decorating. We hope now you are clear with cake decorating techniques, and it might sound a little accessible now.

Common Royal Icing Problem

How to prevent lumps while royal icing cake decorating technique?

The primary way to prevent lumps is to dissolve the powder completely while preparing the royal icing cake decorating. But even after putting in the best efforts, we somehow lack to prevent the lumps. In this case, to avoid mess, put the icing in a piping bag and use it. Also, you can use a pair of pantyhose or a fine mesh cloth straining the lumps in the royal icing cake decorating mixture.

How do I prevent butter bleed?

If you are not aware of butter bleed, then it is the butter oozing out of cookies or cakes while the royal icing cake decorating is used, leaving the icing cake decorating discoloured. It is majorly because of the warmth. The heat leads to the butter bleed, spreading over the cakes or cookies into the icing. You can let the cakes or cookies dry and cool and use a thick layer of royal icing cake decorating on them. Keep the cake in a cool place once iced.

FAQs About Royal Icing Problem

1. How do I store Royal Icing?

Royal icing is the best icing cake decorating that can be kept at room temperature if made of meringue powder and powdered egg whites. To save it from crusting, use a plastic wrap on the surface of it, and this way, you would be able to store the best icing cake decorating for almost two weeks. In between, it might start leaving the water. You need to give a good mix before using.

2. Is it possible to use Royal Icing for cake decoration?

You can use royal icing cake decoration for decorating a fondant cake because just butter bleeds from buttercream cookies in the same way the buttercream would discolour the royal icing.

3. How to make Royal Icing transfers?

For beginners, making royal icing transfers is an excellent way of making decorations. Just avoid sunlight and keep the transfers in a cool place to use as decorations. You can make royal icing cake decorating transfers either on parchment paper or piped onto wax. This will be an easy way to use them on cookies or cupcakes as royal icing cake decorating transfers.

Pro Tips

1. Make more royal icing cake decorating of each colour because it darkens as it dries.

2. Use gel food colouring.

3. Some colours are hard to mix, especially red and black.

4. Draw an outline directly on your cookies if you need an outline.

5. Use quilling or a toothpick to burst the air bubbles.

6. If you want to save the cake from butter bleed, cool it in a rack instead of a pan and cool it completely.

7. Allow the icing to settle and dry completely before adding decorative items of packaging. Like 6-8 hrs at least.