Royal Icing with Meringue Powder
Royal Icing with Meringue Powder provides the perfect way to complete your home-made cookies as you can introduce different colors and decorative toppings before it hardens. The finished cookie has a professional, polished, and expensive appearance. They are almost too pretty to eat! Making a Royal Icing with Meringue Powder is a great substitute for egg whites and easily beats into stiff peaks. Royal Icing is perfect for stacking your finished cookies making them easy to store and transport. Pictured below are Shamrock Sugar Cookies made with Royal Icing with Meringue Powder.
Cutout Cookies Are Too Much Work
Typically, I make a drop cookie with a frosting that is quick to mix and easily spooned onto the cooled cookie. But with the frosting they do not stack for storing. This leads to storing them without any frosting. But it is quick enough to add some frosting to each cookie prior to serving. Cutout cookies always seem to be too much work with rolling out the dough, cutting the shapes, baking and then icing. Whole Grain Cinnamon Oatmeal and Fruit Cookie tends to be my style of baking.
Easy Cutout Cookies?
Recently I decided to make cutout cookies but needed a different icing. Requirements included the ability to fully decorate the cookies, stack them, and transport in my Jeep. My husband mentioned his Mother stacked her finished cookies, which is an ideal situation since how would we store all of those cookies! So off to Google to perform a search and in a matter of minutes I learned about Meringue Powder. Professional Bakers use it to create an icing that dries hard but yet is edible. Now that is a game changer!
What is Royal Icing and Meringue Powder?
Royal icing is a sugar icing that has a thick consistency making it easy to spread on cookies that will harden but is still edible. Just beat together egg whites, powder sugar, vanilla, and water until stiff peaks form. It is popular for cutout cookies, gingerbread houses, and wedding cakes. Spread the Royal Icing onto the cookie or cake and it can be decorated. Meringue Powder replaces the egg whites in Royal Icing, eliminating the risk of getting the yolk in your egg whites. People use it for making Royal Icing, meringues, and other recipes that uses egg whites. Meringue Powder ingredients includes cornstarch, dried egg whites, sugar, and other ingredients. You can find it in the baking area of a Supermarket, craft store and through Amazon.
Royal Icing for Decorating Cookies
Start with mixing the Meringue Powder with water and vanilla until stiff peaks form. The mixture starts thin and it will take some time before the peaks start to form. Once the peaks stay formed then add the powder sugar. The finished Royal Icing is beautiful like a pearl!
Royal Icing Step 1 
Royal Icing Step 2 
Royal Icing Step 3 
Finished Royal Icing
Decorating Cutout Cookies
Divide the icing into bowls and add food coloring. Retain some of the icing as its pure white color in case more of a particular color is required while decorating the cookies. To keep the Royal Icing moist, place a damp cloth over the top. Decorating the cookies with Royal Icing provides control over the icing and enough time to add the decorations before the icing hardens. It does take a while for the icing to cure before stacking the cookies. My preference is to store them in a cold place because if they become warm sticking between cookies can occur. We hope you enjoy this recipe and will consider following Supper Plate. At the bottom of this page is an option to follow us via email. Thank you for supporting our cooking adventures!
Royal Icing with Meringue Powder
Pin RecipeEquipment
- Mixing bowl and mixer (ie., stand up mixer or hand mixer)
- Medium size bowl with lid
Ingredients
- ¼ cup Meringue Powder
- ½ cup Cold Water
- 1 tsp Vanilla
- 4 cups Powdered Sugar
Instructions
- Using a stand up mixer or hand mixer, beat the meringue powder, cold water, and vanilla until the mixture becomes thicker with peaks.
- Once the peaks stay formed then add the powdered sugar and beat until smooth.
- Divide the icing into bowls and add food coloring. To keep the icing moist, place a damp cloth over the top.
- Decorate your cookies with the Royal Icing.
- Once you cover the cookie with icing, you can add sprinkles or any other decorations before it starts to set. It does take a while for the icing to cure and then you can stack the cookies.
Recipe Notes
You May Also Enjoy:
A Modern Twist on Strawberry Shortcake
Whole Grain Cinnamon and Oatmeal Fruit Cookie
Shamrock Sugar Cookies
No Bake Banana Pudding Pie
It is so much fun using royal icing. I haven’t used it in years. Thank you for the recipe!
Your welcome! Now that I used Royal Icing – I am a convert. Next up is a Lemon Meringue pie!
So happy to have this recipe Bernice. I have meringue powder at home so I can make the royal icing easily any time I want!
That is wonderful! I am glad you can use the recipe! Happy Baking!!