Here is my classic easy royal icing made with meringue powder. It’s easy to work with, sets quickly, and won’t break your teeth when it dries. It has the most delicious taste and texture and makes decorating sugar cookies FUN and SIMPLE. Use this traditional royal icing recipe for both flooding and outlining your sugar cookies!
This is the only traditional royal icing I use. It’s my favorite because it’s easy to work with, sets quickly, and doesn’t require raw egg whites. And, best of all, it doesn’t have a hard cement-like texture. It won’t break your teeth like other royal icings!
Meringue Powder in Royal Icing
There are many ways to prepare royal icing and my favorite method is with meringue powder. Meringue powder takes the place of raw egg whites, which is found in traditional royal icing recipes. Both create a very sturdy and stable icing that hardens quickly on top of cookies. Meringue powder, while containing eggs, eliminates the need for raw fresh eggs, but still provides the EXACT same consistency. You can find meringue powder in some baking aisles, most craft stores with a baking section, and online. I just buy it on Amazon in the 8 ounce container. Super inexpensive and it lasts me awhile.
This royal icing is just 3 ingredients: confectioners’ sugar, meringue powder, and water. The trickiest part is landing on the perfect consistency, but I have a helpful video for you below. Sometimes I need more water, sometimes I need less water. But the wonderful thing is that you can manipulate the icing to get the proper consistency by adding more water or more confectioners’ sugar. It’s awesome.
Use This Royal Icing for Flooding and Piping
I use this one royal icing for both piping/outlining and flooding, like you see here on these Valentine’s Day cookies. The icing is thick enough to outline and thin enough to flood, which makes it super convenient.
Decorating Cookies
Here is the sugar cookies recipe you need. Soft centers, crisp edges, easy to decorate. You can also use this royal icing on chocolate sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, or as the glue for a gingerbread house. It’s perfect for making these adorable Easter cookies, fireworks cookies, watermelon sugar cookies, and Halloween cookies. And it can even be used to top homemade mille-feuille.
For a full list of tools I use, see my top recommended cookie decorating supplies. The following is a good list to get started:
- Couplers – needed if you’re using the same icing color, but need to switch tips. Or if you have multiple colors of icing and only 1 tip, and need to move the tip to the other bags of icing.
- Disposable Piping Bags or Reusable Piping Bags – I prefer the 16 inch size for decorating.
- Gel Food Coloring – get the whole set. I love these colors for royal icing, cake batter, frosting, etc. They’re high pigmented so you don’t need as much coloring.
- Piping Tips – see below. Or use a squeeze bottle for less detailed designs, or these icing bottles from Michaels.
- Toothpick – I use a toothpick to help spread out the icing. You could also just use the piping tip, too.
And some piping tips. I always use Wilton piping tip #4 for outlining and flooding the cookie with icing. This is a wonderful basic piping tip to have in your collection. For any detail, I use a thinner round tip like Wilton piping tip #1 (super thin) and Wilton piping tip #2 (thin). For larger round tips that are easier to work with, I suggest Wilton piping tip #3, Wilton piping tip #4, or Wilton piping tip #5. The piping tip #s reflect their sizes. #1 being the thinnest and #5 being the largest of this particular bunch.
Just starting out with piping details? I suggest #1 (smallest), #3 (medium), and #5 (largest of the bunch). You can create anything basic with these three.
Royal Icing Consistency
After mixing the 3 icing ingredients together, lift the whisk attachment up. If the icing that drips off melts back into the bowl of icing within 5-10 seconds, you’re golden. If it’s too thick, add more water. If it’s super thin and watery, just keep beating it OR beat in more confectioners’ sugar.
Can I Freeze Royal Icing?
Yes, royal icing can be frozen. Many royal icing recipes, including this one, yield a lot of icing. Any leftover royal icing can be frozen for up to 2 months. Place leftover royal icing into zipped-top freezer bags. If you have more than 1 color, each color should have its own bag. Before sealing, squeeze as much air out of the bag as possible. Freeze on a flat shelf surface in your freezer. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator and bring to room temperature before using again.
Sugar cookies decorated with royal icing freeze well up to 3 months. Wait for the icing to set completely before layering between sheets of parchment paper in a freezer-friendly container. To thaw, thaw in the refrigerator or at room temperature.
How Can I Make Royal Icing Ahead of Time?
You can prepare this royal icing 2-3 days ahead of time. I recommend transferring it to a smaller bowl or container and tightly sealing for up to 3 days in the refrigerator. When you’re ready to use it, let it come to room temperature, then mix it up with a whisk a few times as it may have separated. Whisking in a few drops of water is helpful if it thickened.
Royal Icing Alternative
If you’d rather skip royal icing and try something easier, here’s my easy cookie icing. This opaque “glaze” style icing doesn’t set/dry as quickly as royal icing and it’s not ideal for piping sharp detail. That being said, sometimes it’s just the more convenient option! It will dry in about 24 hours, where the royal icing recipe below dries in about 1-2 hours.
PrintMy Favorite Royal Icing
- Prep Time: 5 minutes
- Cook Time: 0 minutes
- Total Time: 5 minutes
- Yield: 3 cups
- Category: Dessert
- Cuisine: American
Description
Here is my classic easy royal icing made with meringue powder. It’s easy to work with, sets quickly, and won’t break your teeth when it dries. It has the most delicious taste and texture and makes decorating sugar cookies fun and simple. Use this traditional royal icing recipe for both flooding and outlining your sugar cookies.
Ingredients
- 4 cups (480g) confectioners’ sugar, sifted (I use and recommend Domino brand)
- 3 Tablespoons meringue powder (not plain egg white powder)
- 9–10 Tablespoons room temperature water
- optional for decorating: gel food coloring (I love this food coloring kit)
Instructions
- Watch the video of the icing above so you get an idea of what the final consistency should be.
- Pour confectioners’ sugar, meringue powder, and 9 Tablespoons of water into a large bowl. Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat icing ingredients together on high speed for 1.5 – 2 minutes. When lifting the whisk up off the icing, the icing should drizzle down and smooth out within 5-10 seconds. If it’s too thick, beat in more water 1 Tablespoon at a time. I usually need 10 Tablespoons but on particularly dry days, I use up to 12-14 Tablespoons. Keep in mind that the longer you beat the royal icing, the thicker it becomes. If your royal icing is too thin, just keep beating it to introduce more air OR you can add more sifted confectioners’ sugar.
- When applied to cookies or confections in a thin layer, icing completely dries in about 2 hours at room temperature. If icing consistency is too thin and runny, it will take longer to dry. If the icing is applied very thick on cookies, it will also take longer to dry. If you’re layering royal icing onto cookies for specific designs and need it to set quickly, place cookies in the refrigerator to help speed it up. See blog post above for make-ahead and freezing instructions.
Notes
- When you’re not working directly with the royal icing (for example, you are decorating cookies but you still have some icing left in the bowl that you intend to use next), place a damp paper towel directly on the surface of the royal icing. This prevents it from hardening.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): Electric Mixer (Handheld or Stand Mixer) | Meringue Powder | Americolor Soft Gel Paste Color Kit | Disposable or Reusable Piping Bags | Couplers | Wilton Tip #1 | Wilton Tip #2 | Wilton Tip #3 | Wilton Tip #4 | Wilton Tip #5 | Squeeze Bottle or Icing Bottle
- Optional Flavors: Feel free to add 1/2 teaspoon of your favorite flavored extract, such as lemon, orange, maple, peppermint, etc when you add the water. Taste after the icing comes together, then beat in more if desired. You can also use 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract.
Here is my recipe for sugar cookies.
First time trying your sugar cookie and royal icing today! The cookie tester (pre icing) went ‘mmmm’ so thats a solid . Thank you for sharing
Hi! Thanks for this recipe! Would this also pipe well on a buttercream or fondant covered cake? Also, how would you recommend to color it gold? I was thinking a gold luster dust, but not sure how it would work.
Hi Lindsay, although you could use royal icing to pipe letters or small, intricate designs on top of a cake, it’s really best to use traditional buttercream or Swiss meringue buttercream for piping on cakes. You can either use gel food coloring or a luster dust to tint it gold. Hope this is helpful!
This was so easy to make (I made sure to watch the video to understand consistency) and it dried pretty quickly. I just spooned on and used a toothpick to spread. I also added vanilla extract. Tastes delicious on top of the sugar cookie recipe. Thanks so much!!
It was Delicious I loved them
Hi Sally,
I could only get hold of egg white powder at the time, is there a reason why this isn’t good? It seems to work ok. Just curious what the difference is between egg white powder and meringue powder apart from the meringue powder having more ingredients.
Thanks
Hi Emma! Egg white powder and meringue powder are not the same. Egg white powder can replace egg whites. Meringue powder replaces the ingredients in meringue. The two are different and shouldn’t be used interchangeably in this royal icing recipe. Some recipes use fresh egg whites but that would require a different recipe. We don’t have one, but luckily there are many options if you’re going that route!
Sally, so far I have loved everyone I your recipes I have made. I wish I could say the same about the royal icing. I used the correct, recommended ingredients and amounts . The icing had a chalky mouth feel and taste. I divided the royal icing into bowls to make different flavors. No matter what I added or how much the icing still tasted and felt like chalk. Any suggestions? I’m not giving up on this recipe just yet!
Hi Leona, Thank you for trying this recipe! If the texture is chalky or spongy the culprit is usually overmixing. When too much air gets incorporated into the icing it can take on more of a sponge texture instead of staying smooth. Try slowing down your mixer, and also mixing more gently when you add your colors. If it’s simply the taste you don’t enjoy you can try adding a bit of extract such as vanilla (or any other flavor you wish). I hope this helps!
I did not have a good experience with this icing. I’ve never made royal icing before, so I followed the steps exactly. It’s winter here and very dry. The recipe said you could add extra water, so I did, in order to get the consistency to look like Sally’s. Everything looked right, it piped right, and tasted right. I put them in the fridge, covered, overnight. They didn’t set. So I asked the Facebook group and they said it needs to dry at room temp. So they sat on the counter for 8 hours and they still didn’t set. It was like marshmallow cream. The appearance was perfect, but they were very sticky and almost too embarrassing to serve. I will certainly try the recipe again.
Hi Sally,
Thank you for your wonderful recipes. As others have mentioned here, I tried royal frosting today and it will set up hard. After several hours in the fridge I thought I might set it on the counter again. It’s really cold in my kitchen so I’m hoping that helps dry them out.
While I guess the problem could have been too much water, I only added more because I was trying to dip the cookies and the frosting was too thick on them. It seemed to be a similar consistency to yours. Is there any “save” at this point? Like the freezer?
Thank you so much.
Candi
Thanks so much.
Hi Candi, I’m just seeing your question but if you ever try royal icing again keep in mind that adding more water will cause them to take longer to dry. Depending on how much you add, and how thick the icing is layered on the cookies, it can take anywhere from several hours to 24 hours to completely harden – but it will eventually!!
Thanks for sharing this recipe! This was my first time making and using royal icing and after a night in the fridge the icing was still not set. Do you have any recommendations on what I might do differently next time to keep this from happening? Would this happen if I added a little too much liquid?
Hi Casey, it sounds like the amount of liquid in your royal icing may be the culprit. For next time, we’d recommend adding more confectioners’ sugar and less water to achieve a thicker consistency. Hope this helps!
I had the same problem. I asked the Facebook group and they recommended letting them dry at room temperature. They said there’s a lot of humidity in the fridge that can prevent the icing from setting. So it could be an issue of using too much water and/or using the fridge.
I’ll give that a try next time thanks!
Sugar cookies and royal icing were simple but beautiful! My new go to recipe!
Another winner recipe from Sally! Tried this for my first royal icing attempt, it was perfect! I experimented with other recipes afterwards & they just did not work out. I’ve used this recipe three times since, and it’s been spot on every time! My only alteration is adding 1/2 tsp of Cream of Tartar to keep it extra white – didn’t change the consistency & prevents the need for white food coloring. So happy I found this – thanks Sally!
Sally, first off I love your site. I will be making your sugar cookies later in the week (love the recipe) and using your royal icing (never have done royal icing) recipe . I have seen where many have had issues with it being to runny; I do not plan on adding the water all at once. I also live in a climate that can get humid as very near the coast.
My question is is there a specific description of what the consistency should be like for the royal icing? If it is not drying can you put the cookies in a food dehydrator or in low temp warm oven? Not sure if that would also dry lout the moist cookies…. Like I said I will me making this week and it may be just a teat run. However, if the first time works then great.
Hi Craig. When lifting the whisk up off the icing, the icing should drizzle down and smooth out within 5-10 seconds. To speed up the drying you can pop them in the fridge. Would love to hear how they go!
It went very well. Did not have issues with too runny or thick. I did have trouble piping because of arthritis and trigger finger..but I was pleased with results. I am diabetic and can’t eat much of what I bake, but love to bake.and I hate diabetic baking. I am retired and I recently found about Cake4Kids so I’m back in the kitchen throwing sugar and flour around.
I tried this recipe for the first time about a week ago. My question is if we double the recipe do we also double the amount of meringue powder? I loved the consistency compared to another icing I always use. The thing is that I got feedback that the cookies tasted a bit soapy. Thank God they were Valentine’s samples that I just gave to my friends. I didn’t change anything but the fact that I used meringue powder instead of corn syrup for my icing. My only guess is that the meringue powder gave it that flavor.
Hi Diana! Yes, when you double the recipe you double the meringue powder as well. Some readers have had issues with powdered sugar tasting soapy in the past – mix yours with just a little water and give it a taste to see if that might be the issue. You may want to try a few different brands. You could also try a different brand of meringue powder. Would love to hear what you find out!
Recipe taste yummy. I did need to use more water, might have something to do with my elevation, but it worked out great. Only big issue I had is that it doesn’t seem to be drying…I have had the cookies sitting out for the icing to dry for several hours already, but it just continues to be tacky and soft. I am hoping by morning they will be okay??? Hopefully they dry for stacking and packaging.
Hi Pam, if you can place them in the refrigerator, they will dry a bit faster. The thicker the layer of icing, the longer it takes to set.
Thank you…that makes sense. My layer of icing is quite thick. Hopefully it dries before my cookies do…lol. Cheers
So excited to have found this recipe. Used it in my first attempt ever to make royal icing and I followed the recipe and ingredients exactly as written. IT WAS PERFECT! The video was helpful to watch as well. I used it to decorate my sugar cookies (also followed Sally’s recipe for that too!) and I was so pleased with the consistency and the way it hardened just like Sally described in her instructions. Definitely bookmarking this and will never use store-bought icing again!
Hi sally..I have Swiss meringue buttercream powder. Will that work?
Thank you
I use this recipe all the time except I add less water because what the recipe says makes it top runny. Also this icing definitely does not dry in a couple hours, mine takes at least 24 hours while a fan is blowing on them.
This worked perfectly for my daughter’s snowflakes she made to top her cupcakes. Easy and fast and really dries quickly. Thanks!
Unfortunately I found this icing did not work well. I sifted, used the exact measurements and it still turned out poorly. Very dull and never really dried hard, like royal icing usually does. I think your non royal icing (glaze) with corn syrup makes a
Much prettier cookie. It also stays a proper consistency for a longer period of time, if you are decorating in large batches. I found that one works really well! Thanks for so many great recipes!
For freezer instructions you said to put the icing in a zip lock bag? Does that mean I put the royal icing DIRECTLY in a zip lock bag or in a container in a zip lock bag? Just want to clarify because wouldn’t the icing stick to the zip lock bag making it hard to remove the icing?
Hi Sofia, you can put the icing directly into a zip lock bag to freeze. After you thaw it out you can cut a hole in the bottom of the bag to transfer it to a piping bag. Hope that helps!
Really disappointed with this recipe. I measured everything to a T and 9 tablespoons was WAY to much water!
Hi Deb, The consistency of royal icing depends on many factors including the brand and how you measure your sugar, down to the humidity level in the air. The great thing about royal icing and this recipe is that you can control its thickness with the amount of water you add. If you try it again, add a little water at a time instead of all at once. And if it is too thin you can always add more sugar to thicken it back up!
I followed the recipe exactly and it was very very watery. I ended up added ALOT more sugar to get it to the right consistency… and then it tasted overly sweet that it was almost inedible. I read somewhere that you need to mix it longer. Maybe that should have been noted in the recipe
My kids and I made this recipe tonight. Let me just say, that finding meringue powder during the holiday was no easy feat. Lol. 6 stores and two counties! But it was totally WORTH it! We all had so much fun and even had guest join in that didn’t have great childhoods and have never made Christmas cookies in their lives! It really brought the family together and I’m so thankful to have finally found the perfect recipe to use each year. Thank you!
This recipe works AWESOME for just filling in. But when I tried to use it for details of the snowflake it doesn’t work well. Do you have another recipe or how to alter this one to draw details of snowflakes or other design on to the cookies??
Hi Rachelle, You can definitely change the consistency of this icing by adding more powdered sugar or using less water. If the icing is already made, add more sugar to thicken it up for the lines on your snowflakes.
My first time making Christmas sugar cookies and this royal icing was a disaster for me. It never hardened, just stayed wet and semi-liquidy on the cookies, even after 2 whole days. Any idea what could’ve gone wrong???
I used 9 tablespoons of water. The consistency was too thin, so I added about 30g of extra powdered sugar in order to meet the test (I counted 8-9 seconds before drops fully melted back into the bowl).
The cookies are not servable unfortunately, but your recipe for the “best sugar cookies” was still very tasty with a great texture after wiping off this royal icing.
This recipe was perfect. My first time making royal icing and it was great not having to make two different consistencies. The cookies looked so professional!
Thank you so much for this recipe my grandson just dipped it and it was perfect!!
Perfectly simple and easy to make! Ended up using 9 tbs water and it was PERFECT. Made so much icing and and we had 25 cookies and ended up using half of it. The gel food coloring was smart, we didn’t have it in every color but the liquid type definitely does not work as well.
So glad I tried this recipe today for decorating Christmas cookies! I LOVED only having to use one consistency and it makes it so that the outline blends in seamlessly with the flooding. I made 1.5x the recipe and added 1 tsp of vanilla extract, turned out great!
I found this to be FAR too runny. Which was a bummer as I didn’t have anymore icing sugar to thicken it.
Hi Cynthia, the great thing about royal icing and this recipe is that you can control its thickness with the amount of water you add. Was the icing that runny with 9 or 10 Tbsp of water? Thanks for trying it!
Sally thank you so much for this recipe, it was absolutely perfect for my Christmas cookies. I’m a novice, but your tips (especially the one about using a tall glass to help fill your piping bag) made it so much easier for me this time! Oh and not to mention the icing is delicious !!
This recipe is GREAT! Today I iced all the cookies with the Royal icing. Tomorrow I want to do the detail work with more icing, but the icing is too runny for detailed work, and won’t hold the shape. Do I just add a bit more icing sugar to the Royal icing I have (I made three colours) to thicken it up for more definition in the detailing?
Hi Christine, I’m sorry I’m just seeing this question but if you are still decorating then yes, you can always add more icing sugar to thicken up royal icing!