Has anyone made royal icing without meringue powder?

M

mariadnoca

Moderator
I deeply dislike the taste of royal icing, but I’m contemplating needing to pipe for day of the dead cookies. So I think I’m going to try a recipe that uses actual egg whites instead of meringue because I’m guessing that’s the culprit of the taste problem. But maybe it’s any kind of egg flavor that I’m not liking. Who knows. Has anybody tried this?
 
I have...but first, you might try finding powdered sugar without cornstarch. It's possible that is contributing to your dislike of the flavor. There are a few organic ones out there...but even those seem to be replacing cornstarch with tapioca starch. If you have a Vitamix, you can make your own powdered sugar by zapping regular granulated sugar. The icing will still be overwhelmingly sweet (one of the reasons I no longer make cream cheese icing with that alone).

Newer eggs whites have less water so take that into consideration.

As far as flavoring, I prefer fresh lemon juice to cut the sweetness. It never seemed to impact the cookie flavor.
Sugar Baby icing used both vanilla and a bit of almond extract, which also seemed to mask the powdered sugar flavor.

Not sure of your egg source...lots of warnings re: raw eggs due to Salmonella. Those sites recommend using pasteurized egg whites, but I've never had luck with that for buttercream icing, so never used it for cookie icing.
 
marilynfl said:
I have...but first, you might try finding powdered sugar without cornstarch. It's possible that is contributing to your dislike of the flavor. There are a few organic ones out there...but even those seem to be replacing cornstarch with tapioca starch. If you have a Vitamix, you can make your own powdered sugar by zapping regular granulated sugar. The icing will still be overwhelmingly sweet (one of the reasons I no longer make cream cheese icing with that alone).

Newer eggs whites have less water so take that into consideration.

As far as flavoring, I prefer fresh lemon juice to cut the sweetness. It never seemed to impact the cookie flavor.
Sugar Baby icing used both vanilla and a bit of almond extract, which also seemed to mask the powdered sugar flavor.

Not sure of your egg source...lots of warnings re: raw eggs due to Salmonella. Those sites recommend using pasteurized egg whites, but I've never had luck with that for buttercream icing, so never used it for cookie icing.
Click to expand...

Hummm, I don’t think I’m bothered by the cornstarch because when I make my regular cookie icing, it’s powdered sugar and water and almond extract. I love the flavor of that. It just doesn’t set up where you can pipe it or dry hard quick, I could make powdered sugar in the Vitamix though, never thought about that. To me, the culprit seems to be the meringue powder because that’s the only ingredient that’s different. I already bought the carton of pasteurized egg whites to try.
 
Maria, read through Stella’s breakdown on Royal Icing. I find her details with every recipe I’ve made from her to be quite accurate.

www.seriouseats.com

Perfect Royal Icing Recipe

This easy royal icing recipe is perfect for decorating your sugar cookies. It dries glossy and firm, protecting your designs, whether for Christmas and the holidays or any other occasion, from smushing and smudging.
www.seriouseats.com www.seriouseats.com
 
marilynfl said:
Maria, read through Stella’s breakdown on Royal Icing. I find her details with every recipe I’ve made from her to be quite accurate.

www.seriouseats.com

Perfect Royal Icing Recipe

This easy royal icing recipe is perfect for decorating your sugar cookies. It dries glossy and firm, protecting your designs, whether for Christmas and the holidays or any other occasion, from smushing and smudging.
www.seriouseats.com www.seriouseats.com
Click to expand...
This sounds great! I had another recipe I was going to try, but this sounds better. Since the egg whites in the carton already come pasteurized it really doesn’t need to be cooked, but the method itself sounds to be a winning combination.

if I’m reading this right, do you think she means the thicker version is the right consistency to pipe decorations on the cookie and the thin version is the outline and flood? I have a terrible time getting the right consistency with the whole 15 seconds or whatever it is they’re saying and it just never seems to be right. Since the plan is to do the day of the dead skull cookies, we need to outline and flood a white base and then pipe the color decorations on top.

Do you think this timing would be correct?
 
Yes. Here is another article where she shows the outline and flooding....same bag of icing. Yet another article says the correct consistency ( a figure 8) should disappear in 8 seconds...too soon and you need to add a TBL of powdered sugar. Longer than 8 seconds and you need to add a touch more cream.

www.seriouseats.com

How to Make Christmas Cookies Look Like They Came From a Bakery, According to a Pastry Chef

Transform your holiday baking from basic to beautiful.
www.seriouseats.com www.seriouseats.com
 
I do it often, but the stiff version for Christmas cakes. I have started using the container of pasteurized egg whites, and they work very well. I can't stand the taste of meringue powder.
 
Huh...this is interesting. I've never actually "eaten" the icing I made with meringue powder. It's just the quickest and most consistent product when I'm cranking out 6-8 pounds of powdered sugar icing for my GBH (i.e.: 2 pounds just for the ground cover). One year I was in PA and wanted to make a small house for my mom. Tried making it with egg whites and a portable hand mixer. Big fiasco. Never doing that again.

Please let us know how this all ends up.
 
Last edited:
I’ll need to run to the store for organic powdered sugar, but hoping to get some done in the morning (after football 😁}. I like my icing w almond extract, so will use that vs vanilla or rum.

i love how beautiful iced sugar cookies can look w royal icing. I admire them, but don’t eat. I think of them more as a craft project than yummy food. For my Christmas sugar cookies I just normally use powdered sugar, water (or milk), almond extract. That’s not gonna get you a pretty piped cookie, but it’s gonna taste good… Or at least it does to me.
 
I confess it's been at least 2 years (I think), maybe 3 since I made decorated sugar cookies. Maybe more. Got burned out on them. And now I'm just plain lazy.
 
deb-in-mi said:
I confess it's been at least 2 years (I think), maybe 3 since I made decorated sugar cookies. Maybe more. Got burned out on them. And now I'm just plain lazy.
Click to expand...
Well, it’s likely I lazy out and use the edible felt tip colored pens in the end. I got busy doing other thing and now realize I should mail everything tomorrow. It’s now 3pm and I just got back from the store. 🤪
 
Update: much like the sm icing, whoever wrote this recipe thinks the ka bowl will be cool to the touch after 20 seconds of melting ding a hot substance. Who are these people? unlike Swiss meringue, buttercream, and what I intended to try next time with Swiss meringue buttercream was I cooked it in a double boiler not using the KA bowl. I transferred the hot icing to the mixer, and of course 20 seconds is not enough to cool down the bowl. Who are these people?
 
Update: I’m mid icing making, but I thought I should add someone who wrote this recipe is another someone that thinks putting a hot substance into a ka bowl and it only takes 20 seconds of mixing for it to be cool to the touch. Who are these people?
 
Update: much like the sm icing, whoever wrote this recipe thinks the ka bowl will be cool to the touch after 20 seconds of melting ding a hot substance. Who are these people?

It does taste good, though seems gritty. it dried too much when mixing so had to add additional cream, which means it’s slow to harden, Entirely my fault on that, my feet needed a break and I thought if I kept mixing it would’t crust. I managed to get a base coat on the 18 larger skulls…and that’s all.

One thing I’d for sure change is to sift the sugar first.
 
Last edited:
Overnight update: well since I added all that cream, the cookies have not hardened overnight, so I’ve decided these are going to have to be shipped in a separate package on a different day. This will also allow me to make a second batch to pipe decorations on to the cookie. Film at 11.
 
Well, I cheated and used the felt tip pins because I’m already a day behind getting them mailed, so couldn’t wait for piping to dry

IMG_5711.jpeg
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top