[MUSIC PLAYING] Another icing thing that's
good to have in your arsenal is royal icing. It's a hard drying
icing, and it's what we use for piping
decorations that need to dry. You can use it for putting
together gingerbread houses and icing fun colorful
sugar cookies. When it comes to flowers,
it's also an alternate for piping in buttercream. The difference is that
royal icing flowers set. So you can let them dry,
and you can actually make them in advance. Also, they have a
longer shelf life. So you can pipe the royal
icing flowers, let them dry, and keep them for up
to six whole months. One thing to note--
because it's hard drying, we don't really use
it to cover cakes. Let's get started
with this recipe. Making royal icing's
actually very, very simple. One of the most important
things to keep in mind, though, is that your tools
and surfaces are grease free. So if you've recently
used your bowl for mixing cake
batter or buttercream, give it an extra
wash to be sure. Because royal icing
will not set up properly if there's any grease. Also, make sure that you're
using a paddle attachment. And if you have a hand
mixer, use the beaters. We want to aerate the
icing, but using a whisk will give the wrong texture. You'll also want to have
a silicone spatula on hand for the stirring. The ingredients
are super simple. I have 3 tablespoons
of meringue powder, 4 cups of powdered sugar, and
5 tablespoons of warm water, and that is it. Now, I'm going to go ahead
and start putting all the ingredients in the bowl. I'm going to put my 4 cups
of powdered sugar in first. Make sure my cup is full here. I think that's pretty good. And then my meringue powder
is already pre-measured. And again, this
is 3 tablespoons. And then I'll be measuring
5 tablespoons of warm water. And then finally just
attaching my paddle. Now, I'm going to go
ahead and beat this on low speed for
7 to 10 minutes, but I'm going to start it
really slow because you're going to see here that
the powdered sugar will kind of puff up. So you want to kind of go
slowly with it at first. You can see that my icing looks
a little dry, but don't worry. Because once it gets going,
it's going to start to whip up. Again, all we have to do is
beat the ingredients together until the ice starts
to form peaks. If your icing is
looking really dry and not coming
together like this, you can add a teaspoon
of water at a time-- just enough to get
rid of the dry lumps of the powdered sugar. It's been about six minutes,
and look how fluffy this is. If you're icing is still
looking a little flat, you can switch to
medium speed, and I'm going to let this go
for one more minute. It's been about
eight minutes, and I think my royal icing
is pretty much done. Normally, this takes
about 7 to 10 minutes on low speed with
a heavy duty mixer and about 10 to 12
minutes on high speed if you're using a hand mixer. That's a really long
time to have your hand mixer running on high, and
this icing gets really thick as you've seen. So if you start seeing
your hand mixer struggling, you may want to pause and
let it rest a little bit. But not for too long because
this icing will deflate. You know that your royal icing
is done when the icing looks very matte, and I'm going
to take out the paddle and check right now. When you check the
consistency with your whip, you're going to get stiff peeks. See how this peak
doesn't even bend? It's staying put. And that's it. This is about 3 cups of
stiff consistency icing. This is going to work really
well for decorations like roses and making upright petals. But if you're going to use it
for borders and drop flowers, you're going to need to
thin this down a bit. I'll have more
information on that and the royal icing
consistency video. You've noticed that I covered
my bowl with a damp cloth. It's really important because
royal icing will crust over very quickly, and you want to
make sure it's always covered. You need a damp
cloth because that will create a humid
environment in the bowl so that the royal icing
surface stays wet. I want to talk quickly
about an ingredient that I mentioned that might
not be familiar to you, which is meringue powder. Traditionally, royal icing
is made with raw egg whites. Meringue powder is
shelf stable, meaning you won't have any food safety
issues of using raw egg whites. Meringue powder, however,
is not the same as dried egg whites, which is also
called egg white powder. You will not get the same
results if you use it. Meringue powder is typically
hard to find in grocery stores. You'll have better
luck with stores that have a dedicated
baking and cake decorating aisle like craft stores. And sometimes the big box
stores might carry it too. This royal icing
recipe is a great base for your favorite flavorings. I recommend this,
especially if you're using this as a cookie icing. On its own, this is really
just straight up sugar. If you choose to add flavor,
make sure you check it first that it doesn't have oil
listed in the ingredients because that's going to
break down your royal icing. You can add flavorings
to taste, but be mindful not to
add so much liquid that it affects the
consistency of your icing. If you like a lot
of flavor, you may want to substitute
some of the water in the icing recipe
with your flavoring. You may also want to think about
using the Treatology flavors because it's designed
especially for decorating. Because these flavors
are concentrated, you only need to use
just a few drops, and it won't mess with the
consistency of your icing. You can also mix them
to create new flavors. Clear flavors are
also a great option for adding flavor to royal
icing without adding any color. If you use pure vanilla
extract, your white icing might get a little bit duller,
more like on the ivory side than bright white. The last thing I want to
talk about is storing icing. You might not need all of
this icing for your projects. And because all the
ingredients are shelf stable, you can store royal icing
in an airtight container at room temperature
for up to two weeks. Before you use it
again, you'll see that the royal icing might
look a bit soft and deflated, but don't worry. Just re-whip it using a paddle
attachment on low speed, and your royal icing will
be perfect to use again. [MUSIC PLAYING]
