Royal Icing From Bake at 350

By svarjan

Ingredients

• (This will cover 2-3 dozen 3.5 inch cookies in 2 colors; I usually double this recipe.)
• 4 TBSP meringue powder
• scant 1/2 c. water
• 1 lb. powdered sugar
• 1/2 - 1 tsp light corn syrup
• few drops clear extract (optional)

Preparation

Step 1

Combine the meringue powder and water. With the paddle attachment of an electric mixer, beat until combined and foamy.

Sift in the powdered sugar and beat on low to combine. (Do NOT skip the sifting!)

Add in the corn syrup and extract if desired. ( I think the corn syrup helps keep the icing shiny.)

Increase speed to med-high/high and beat for about 5 minutes, just until the icing is glossy and stiff peaks form.

(You should be able to remove the beater from the mixer and hold up and jiggle without the peak falling.) Do not overbeat.

Cover with plastic wrap touching the icing or divide and color using gel paste food colorings.

This "stiff" icing is perfect for outlining and even for building gingerbread houses and monogramming. To fill in your cookies, add water to your icing a teaspoon at a time, stirring with a rubber spatula, until it is the consistency of syrup. This technique of filling a cookie with thinned icing is called "flooding."

How do you know the perfect consistency for icing when flooding?

Once your colors are mixed, add water a teaspoon at a time to thin it for flooding. Stir the water in with a rubber spatula, rather than beating it. Hold your rubber spatula over the bowl and let some icing fall back into the bowl. The ribbon of icing should disappear into the rest of the icing in about 2-3 seconds, counting "one-one thousand, two-one thousand."