This Easy Royal Icing Recipe is my favorite icing for sugar cookies. It’s a simple royal icing recipe for piping, and it is nearly impossible to mess up. It’s a royal icing with meringue powder (so it has no egg whites in it), and it makes the prettiest icing for rollout sugar cookies.

The Best Royal Icing Recipe Ever

If there’s one thing I’m an expert in, it’s the Christmas season and Christmas cookies.

Whether it’s some cutout Christmas cookies, plain sugar cookies, or something a little spicier (like molasses cookies), I can’t let a season go by without whipping up a few batches of all things sugar and spice.

Typically, when it comes to a classic sugar cutout cookie, I default using a vanilla buttercream on top. Frosted sugar cookies are so classic for the season, plus I love the flavor of homemade frosting on top of a thick cookie.

However, there’s truly nothing like the look of royal icing on sugar cookies (especially chocolate sugar cookies because colorful icing + dark chocolate cookies = GORGEOUS). I’m not a cookie artist so I’m evidence that you can decorate cookies with royal icing simply or elaborately as you’d like.

What is royal icing for cookies?

Traditional royal icing is a mixture of water, powdered sugar, and meringue powder. Many traditional royal icing recipes are made with egg whites, but meringue powder is a great substitute.

Ingredients:

Powdered Sugar: Powdered sugar is a key ingredient in royal icing because it’s so finely ground.
Meringue Powder: While you can make royal icing without meringue powder (instead using egg whites or corn syrup), I love how easy meringue powder is.
Water
Orange Juice: Many icing recipes use lemon juice, but I prefer the flavor of orange.
Vanilla: Vanilla extract or almond extract adds a really nice flavor.

How to Make Royal Icing at Home:

Using a hand mixer or a standing mixer, you whip meringue powder, powdered sugar, water, orange juice and vanilla extract together until stiff peaks form. (You can omit the orange juice and use all water instead; however, I like how the orange juice adds a bit of citrus flavor to the icing.)
This is the piping royal icing consistency. If you plan on using different colors, divide the icing into separate bowls and color as desired with gel food coloring (I highly recommend gel food coloring for royal icing).
If you plan on using any of the icing for flooding, divide the icing again (so that you have a bowl for piping/outlining and a bowl for flooding).
The icing you want to use for flooding needs to be thinned out with a little bit of water. Add about a teaspoon of water at a time until the icing is thin enough. It should be thick enough to hold its shape, yet thin enough it drizzles off of a spoon.
The best thing about royal icing is that if the icing is too stiff, you just add a little more water until it’s at your desired consistency. If it’s too thin, add in a bit more powdered sugar.
Royal icing, depending upon how thick it is, can take anywhere from 2-4 hours to dry completely. You can speed up the process by putting them in the fridge, but if possible, it is best to let them air dry.

What does royal icing taste like?

Sweet. But I promise you, this is a royal icing that tastes good (thanks to the orange juice and vanilla).

Where can I find meringue powder?

You can find it at most craft stores in their cake decorating section. For me, that’s Michael’s, Joann’s, or Hobby Lobby.
You can also find it online; however, if you live in California (like me) a lot of online retailers will not ship it there.

Two easy royal icing techniques I used:

Piping is a thick consistency, similar to frosting. It’s used for outlining your cookies and for adding the details on your cookies (the picture above is the piping consistency).
Flooding is a looser consistency and it’s used to ‘flood’ large sections of your cookie. For most of my cookies, I piped a border/outline around the cookies, then flooded the center of my cookies. (The picture below is flooding consistency.)
Pro Tip: When making royal icing, make it the ‘piping’ consistency first. When you need icing for flooding, all you need to do is a little water to thin the frosting out.

Royal Icing Tools:

toothpicks: I love toothpicks are used to help you spread “flooded” royal icing. You can also use a needle or a scribe tool, but for a basic royal icing recipe a toothpick is great.
piping bags:
The piping bags are so you can pipe your frosting onto your cookies easily. This is where your piping tips and couplers will come in handy.
piping tips (my go to tip is #3 or #4 Wilton tip, using #1 and #2 for more precise detail)
couplers: I like couplers because you can switch piping tips quickly and easily.
squeeze bottles: This is optional, as you can use a piping bag. However, the squeeze bottle method is my favorite because it’s way easier and cleaner.
- Yes, you can use a piping bag for flooding (as I used in the video). However, I found using a piping bag was just a little too messy, because the icing was so thin it leaked out of the tip when I wasn’t using it (plus, it felt a little wasteful). Using a squeeze bottle eliminated that problem for me.

Royal Icing Decorating Tips:

If you plan on using the flooding technique, pipe a border around the edge of the cookie with the thick piping icing. This will help keep the thin icing from going off of the edge of the cookie.
When flooding, I like to ice the cookie almost to the piped border of the cookie. Then, I take a toothpick and spread the icing to the piped border edge. It gives the cookie a really clean look.
If you want to do the ‘wet on wet’ icing trick (like I do in the video), after you flood the icing, use another ‘flood’ consistency icing to make dots or lines on the iced cookie. Use a toothpick to swirl the colors together.
Or, you can allow the flooded icing to set, then can decorate on top of it with any other icing you want.

blue royal icing on chocolate sugar cookies

Easy Royal Icing Recipe

Prep: 10

Total: 10

This Easy Royal Icing Recipe is my favorite icing for sugar cookies. It's a simple royal icing recipe for piping, and it is nearly impossible to mess up. It's a royal icing with meringue powder (so it has no egg whites in it), and it makes the prettiest icing for rollout sugar cookies.

Ingredients

Instructions

With a standing mixer with a whisk attachment (or a hand mixer), whisk powdered sugar, meringue powder, water (starting with 6 Tbsp of water), and vanilla extract.
As the mixture begins to come together, add in orange juice. Whip on medium speed until the icing holds stiff peaks.**
Divide the icing into separate bowls and tint with gel food coloring (if you only want to use white royal icing, you can omit this step). This is the piping consistency for royal icing.
For flooding, thin the royal icing with water, beginning with a teaspoon at a time until it’s at the desired consistency (it should be thick enough to hold its shape, yet thin enough it drizzles off of a spoon).
When decorating, pipe a border around the edge of your cookies. Flood the centers of the cookies, then use a toothpick to spread the icing to the edges. Allow the icing to set before adding more decorating details (if you are planning on using the wet on wet technique, you can read in the post for more tips).
Allow the cookies to air dry (about 4 hours) before stacking on top of each other.

Notes

*You can substitute water or lemon juice for fresh orange juice, if you prefer.

**The best thing about royal icing is that if the icing is too stiff, you just add a little more water until it’s at your desired consistency. If it’s too thin, add in a bit more powdered sugar.

***Recipe for the cutout chocolate sugar cookies.

The nutrition facts provided are calculated using a third-party tool and are estimates only. Actual nutritional content may vary based on the ingredients and brands you use, as well as portion sizes. For accurate results, please consult a registered dietitian or nutritionist.

Course Dessert

Cuisine American