Has anyone made royal icing without meringue powder?

[mariadnoca]

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?

 

[marilynfl]

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.

 

[mariadnoca]

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.

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.