Ingredients

There are a variety of recipes available on the Internet, but they all more or less start with the same base: egg whites (fresh, pasteurized eggs in a liquid form or dried eggs in the form of meringue powder), powdered sugar as well as additivessuch as stabilizers and/or flavorings.

Pasteurized egg whites in a liquid form

• Liquid egg whites are hen eggs that have undergone a pasteurisation. They are easy to work with - packed in bottles, so there is no sloppy separating egg yolks from whites. What's more, you take only as much as you need and freeze the rest for later use. They are available on Allegro or stores with dietary supplements and nutrients.

Note:

Pasteurized eggs are recommended in order to avoid Salmonella infection. As the icing dries, the conditions under which bacteria can grow are greatly diminished, especially if there was little to no bacteria in the eggs to begin with.

Meringue powder

• Meringue powder is a baking substitute made mostly of dried egg whites that you can use instead of raw fresh egg whites. It’s used mostly in making meringue or icing.

• Powdered egg whites are a great substitution for meringue powder and are essentially interchangeable. The difference between these two is their composition: powdered egg whites are just dried egg whites, while meringue powder is an egg product containing additives like corn starch, sugar, gum arabic, calcium sulphate, citric acid, cream of tartar, silicon dioxide and artificial vanilla flavoring. Both will make a solid Royal Icing.

Powdered sugar

• Also labeled as ​​confectioners’ sugar or icing sugar. Powdered sugar thickens your icing, so be careful not to add too much of it at once. Use conventional powdered sugar - organic powdered sugar is often made with evaporated cane sugar, and this results in a slightly beige color. If your powdered sugar has lot of hard lumps it's best to sift it, or it will plug tips of piping bags while decorating.

Lemon juice

• Lemon juice in Royal Icing acts both as a stabilizer and as a flavoring. Due to it's acidity, it stabilizes the structure of the medium helping to form stiff peaks as well as brightens it up (bleaching). The lemon aroma gives a fresh scent to the icing, which can be a bit dull when made just of egg whites and icing sugar. Add as much as you want, as you can always thicken your medium with icing sugar.

Cream of tartar

• Cream of tartar (potassium tartrate) is a byproduct of the winemaking process that acts as a stabilizer and keeps the egg whites from collapsing and prevents the crystallization of sugar. Add it in small quantities - half a teaspoon for a big batch of icing is enough.