This is the only royal icing recipe you'll ever need! With no meringue powder needed, my secret ingredient makes this icing harden perfectly. Plus, I'm sharing my expert tips on adjusting your icing to the perfect consistency, coloring, and storing your icing.
In a medium to small sized mixing bowl, combine all of the ingredients (minus the gel food coloring) and mix with a spatula or mixer until smooth.
2 cups (227g) powdered sugar, 2 Tbsp milk or warm water, 1 Tbsp corn syrup, ½ tsp vanilla or almond extract
Add more milk or water, 1 tsp at a time, if the frosting is too thick. You can pick your desired consistency and manipulate it by adding more water or more powdered sugar. Ideally, when you lift the spoon or mixing utensil up, you want the royal icing that falls into the bowl to disappear within 5-10 seconds.
Divide into bowls and add gel food coloring. Transfer to piping bags or squeeze bottles (https://amzn.to/3SvF85D) to easily decorate the cookies.
Gel food coloring
I really like these squeeze bottles because you can cut the tips to varying widths and they come with caps. However, if you don’t have caps, cover the tops of the squeeze bottles with a wet paper towel to prevent them from drying out if storing overnight.