5-Minute Royal Icing

By Alison Roman

Updated Oct. 23, 2024

5-Minute Royal Icing
Total Time
5 minutes
Rating
4(434)
Comments
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When it comes to decorating sugar cookies, there’s nothing more iconic or festive than that thick, glossy royal icing. You'll want to mix the ingredients until they're fluffy, and until the icing flows fluidly from the whisk. Once it's the texture of hot fudge, it'll be ready to apply to your cookies. After it dries, at least an hour later, it’ll take on a matte, smooth appearance resembling an eggshell, a perfect canvas for your most inspired designs.

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Ingredients

Yield:About 1¾ cups
  • 3large egg whites
  • 3¾cups/453 grams confectioners’ sugar (a standard 1-pound box)
  • Pinch of cream of tartar
  • Pinch of kosher salt
  • Food coloring (optional)
Ingredient Substitution Guide
Nutritional analysis per serving (6 servings)

302 calories; 0 grams fat; 0 grams saturated fat; 0 grams trans fat; 0 grams monounsaturated fat; 0 grams polyunsaturated fat; 75 grams carbohydrates; 0 grams dietary fiber; 74 grams sugars; 2 grams protein; 49 milligrams sodium

Note: The information shown is Edamam’s estimate based on available ingredients and preparation. It should not be considered a substitute for a professional nutritionist’s advice.

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Preparation

  1. Step 1

    Using an electric mixer, whisk egg whites till light and foamy, about 1 minute.

  2. Step 2

    Add powdered sugar, cream of tartar and salt to egg whites and continue to whisk, stopping to scrape down bowl as necessary, until extremely light and fluffy, almost like shaving cream.

  3. Step 3

    Thin icing with water by the tablespoonful until it has the viscosity of hot fudge. (This is the ideal texture for decorating.) Depending on your egg whites, this could be 3 to 4 tablespoons of water.

  4. Step 4

    If you'd like to tint the icing different colors, separate icing into small bowls. Add food coloring to each bowl using only a drop or two at a time, and stir thoroughly to combine, until desired color is achieved. Icing dries out fairly quickly, so keep covered until ready to use.

Ratings

4 out of 5
434 user ratings
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Comments

Marnie

It would be helpful to know how much icing this will make, such as "enough to ice 6 dozen 2 inch cookies", or "approximately 2 cups of icing". I often have loads of icing left over.

PDeCo

The explanation that this should have the “viscosity of fudge” is not useful for anyone who has not made fudge. There was a brief visual in the video of the consistency and that helps. You might also say the “consistency of molasses” which i would have found more helpful.

Carola

Does anyone know what’s the actual weight of egg whites to weight of sugar proportion? It’ll be useful to scale the recipe appropriately!

John Yearwood, Austin Tx

Could you add a little vanilla extract instead of all the water?

Anne

Use Aquafaba instead of egg whites for a vegan version! 1 Tbsp/egg white called for.

Rebecca

It was very runny and we didn't add any water. Ended up adding way more sugar to thicken it.

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