Royal icing is a hard white
icing, made from softly beaten
egg white
Egg white is the clear liquid (also called the albumen or the glair/glaire) contained within an egg. In chickens, it is formed from the layers of secretions of the anterior section of the hen's oviduct during the passage of the egg. It forms a ...
s,
icing sugar (powdered sugar), and sometimes lemon or lime juice. It is used to decorate
Christmas cake
Christmas cake is a type of cake, often fruitcake, served at Christmas time in many countries.
British variations
Christmas cake is an English tradition that began as plum porridge. A traditional English Christmas cake is made with moist Zan ...
s,
wedding cake
A wedding cake is the traditional cake served at wedding receptions following dinner. In some parts of England, the wedding cake is served at a wedding breakfast; the 'wedding breakfast' does not mean the meal will be held in the morning, but at ...
s,
gingerbread houses, cookies, and many other cakes and biscuits. It is used either as a smooth covering or in sharp peaks.
Glycerine
Glycerol () is a simple triol compound. It is a colorless, odorless, sweet-tasting, viscous liquid. The glycerol backbone is found in lipids known as glycerides. It is also widely used as a sweetener in the food industry and as a humectant in ...
is often added to prevent the icing from setting too hard. When placing icing on cakes,
marzipan
Marzipan is a confectionery, confection consisting primarily of sugar and almond meal (ground almonds), sometimes augmented with almond oil or extract.
It is often made into Confectionery, sweets; common uses are chocolate-covered marzipan and ...
is usually used under the royal icing in order to prevent discoloration of the icing.
Usual proportions are 2 egg whites to 1 teaspoon of lemon juice, 1 teaspoon of glycerine, and around 1 pound of sugar depending on the application.
As well as coating cakes and biscuits, royal icing is used to make decorations such as flowers and figures for putting on the cake. The royal icing is piped into shapes which are allowed to harden on a non-stick surface. These can then be arranged to create edible decorative effects on a variety of sweet foods. The glycerine must be omitted for this purpose. Royal icing is often used to create snow scenes but is also used as an edible adhesive – particularly for gingerbread houses.
Health risk
Royal icing is traditionally prepared with raw egg whites, which have a very small chance of transmitting
salmonella poisoning.
Meringue
Meringue ( , ) is a type of dessert or candy, of French cuisine, French origin, traditionally made from Whisk, whipped egg whites and sugar, and occasionally an acid, acidic ingredient such as lemon, vinegar, or potassium bitartrate, cream of t ...
powder or ready-to-use,
pasteurized,
refrigerated egg whites (wet eggs) can be used with similar results.
History
The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' gives the first mention of royal icing as Borella's ''Court and Country Confectioner'' (1770). The term was well-established by the early 19th century, although William Jarrin (1827) still felt the need to explain that the term was used by confectioners (so presumably it was not yet in common use among mere cooks or amateurs). It developed at some stage in the early 18th century, replacing earlier styles of icing which generally involved making a meringue-like concoction that was then dried out in the mouth of an oven.
Elizabeth Raffald (1769) is generally credited with the addition of a layer of marzipan between it and the cake beneath. Piping with royal icing came along a little later, in the 1840s, driven by German culinary innovators. Prior to that, decoration was usually of moulded
pastillage or sugarpaste.
There is a myth that it was named royal after it gained widespread publicity when images of Victoria and Albert's bride cake (wedding cake) were circulated, but this is untrue, not least because the real boost came when images of their eldest daughter's wedding cake were published in papers such as ''
The Illustrated London News
''The Illustrated London News'', founded by Herbert Ingram and first published on Saturday 14 May 1842, was the world's first illustrated weekly news magazine. The magazine was published weekly for most of its existence, switched to a less freq ...
'' (not founded until 1842), by which time the name had been in use for over 80 years.
Gallery
File:AustenTeapotCookies.jpg, Black and white royal icing cookies
File:Making Royal icing.jpg, Making royal icing
File:Buckley gingerbread men.jpg, Decorating gingerbread with royal icing
File:Snowflake Christmas sugar cookies (2), December 2008.jpg, Blue royal icing cookies
File:Kransekage (4733199229).jpg, Kransekage
(), (Norwegian) or (Icelandic) is a traditional Danish cuisine, Danish and Norwegian cuisine, Norwegian Confectionery, confection, often eaten on special occasions in Scandinavia. In English, the name means 'wreath cake'. In Norway it is alt ...
decorated with royal icing
See also
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Dough
Dough is a malleable, sometimes elastic paste made from flour (which itself is made from grains or from leguminous or chestnut crops). Dough is typically made by mixing flour with a small amount of water or other liquid and sometimes includes ...
*
Egg white
Egg white is the clear liquid (also called the albumen or the glair/glaire) contained within an egg. In chickens, it is formed from the layers of secretions of the anterior section of the hen's oviduct during the passage of the egg. It forms a ...
*
Fondant icing
Fondant icing, also commonly just called fondant (, ; ), is an icing used to decorate or sculpt cakes and pastries. It is made from sugar, water, gelatin, vegetable oil or shortening, and glycerol. It does not have the texture of most icings; ...
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Ganache
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Icing (food)
Icing, or frosting, is a sweet, often creamy Glaze (cooking technique), glaze made of sugar with a liquid, such as water or milk, that is often enriched with ingredients like butter, egg whites, cream cheese, or flavorings. It is used to coat or ...
References
{{Reflist
Confectionery
Cake decorating