lemon royal icing

This lemon royal icing is so incredibly delicious. It tastes like lemonade- sweet and tangy without being sour. I paired it with my Meyer lemon sugar cookies and it was so delicious.

why you’ll love lemon royal icing

• This is the base recipe I use for all of my cookie decorating. It’s reliable and delicious!
• This royal icing does not use raw egg whites. It uses meringue powder, which is a shelf stable powdered egg white with a few other ingredients. It usually has a light vanilla flavor. There are many brands, but my favorites are Genie’s Dream and Modern Mountain. I’ve heard good things about Chefmaster. Use whatever is accessible to you.
• This royal icing tastes delicious, which is rare for royal icing. Royal icing gets a bad rap for being tooth-achingly sweet and rock hard. Thanks to the addition of corn syrup in this recipe, this icing dries with a softer bite. And, thanks to the salt, the sweetness is balanced.
• The flavor in this icing comes from lemon juice, and I promise it’s not too sour. Royal icing is pure sugar, so the flavor is balanced and delicious.

ingredients in lemon royal icing

• meringue powder– We are using this instead of egg whites. Egg whites, unless pasteurized, can hold harmful bacteria like salmonella. Meringue powder is shelf stable, powdered egg whites and has a light vanilla flavor. Do not substitute for plain powdered egg whites, however, because meringue powder has a few other ingredients and is specifically designed for royal icing and meringues.
• powdered sugar– Icing sugar, powdered sugar, 10x, these are all the same fine powdered sugars.
• vanilla bean paste– I love Heilala (shop bundles and sales for great deals), The Spice House (you can use my code EMILYLOGGANS for 10% off), and Nielsen-Massey.
• Diamond Crystal kosher salt– This salt is amazing, and I will die on the hill that everyone should be using it. However, if you don’t have it handy, just halve the amount of salt the recipe calls for and use table salt or another fine salt.
• water
• lemon juice– Make sure to juice a fresh lemon. Look for a lemon with thin skin that has shallow pores. (Meyer lemons are a great choice for this icing!) This is not the time to use jarred lemon juice.

supplies you need to make lemon royal icing

• stand mixer- you can use a hand mixer, but a stand mixer is preferred here
• paddle attachment
• wire whisk
• spatula- to scrape down the bowl

how to make lemon royal icing

This recipe makes a big batch of royal icing, enough to decorate about 3 dozen cookies. If you have extra icing, you can store it in an airtight container on the counter for a couple weeks, in the fridge for a month, or in the freeze for a few months. If you need less icing and don’t want to make a big batch, the recipe can be easily halved. If you need more, it can be easily doubled, which is what I used to do every week when decorating cookies for clients.

Starting with an optional step that is good practice, but I never do it because I’m lazy. Wipe your bowl, spatula, and paddle attachment down with white vinegar or lemon juice. This is to erase any fat molecules that could be clinging to those surfaces. Fat will interfere with the royal icing and cause it to break down, not dry, and just act weird in general. However, royal icing is tolerant ever so slightly to a *little bit of fat. Meaning, if you just made cookies in the mixer, and everything is still greasy, that’s no good. Wash it again. But, if the bowl is perfectly clean to the naked eye, it’s going to be fine even if there is tiny invisible fat residue, so I never wipe the bowl down. But I’m going to tell you to do it, and do with that what you will.

To the mixing bowl, add the salt, meringue powder, and water / lemon juice. Use a wire whisk to combine, making sure there are no lumps of meringue powder in the bowl. The mixture will be frothy on top with liquid on the bottom, kind of like beer.

Add the powdered sugar to the bowl all at once. Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and mix on low to combine into a thick, syrupy icing. Add the vanilla, any other flavorings you are adding, corn syrup, and a squeeze of white gel food coloring. Mix again, raising the speed to medium (four on the Kitchen Aid) for three minutes. The icing will be thick, glossy, and fluffy. 

Cover the icing with cling film immediately, touching the surface. You could also cover it with a moist towel draped over the bowl if you’re going to be using it immediately. If you’re making it ahead, store it in an airtight container.

The consistency of the icing will be a toothpaste/piping/detail consistency. Color it and thin it out as needed for decorating.

success tips for making lemon royal icing

• Don’t over mix the icing. Over-mixing causes the icing to not dry properly, and it will have a spongy texture that crumbles off the cookie.
• Use a dehumidifier if your room has a humidity level of 50% or higher. If you notice your royal icing is drying with a matte or sparkly finish, it could be because of the humidity in your room.
• If you have a dehydrator, popping the cookies in there for a few minutes will help the icing dry with more of a shine.
• If your icing is warm toned, and you want to tone it, add a squeeze of Americolor lilac and mix to combine. You may have seen the tip floating around online about adding purple gel coloring to icing or buttercream to tone it. Sometimes that ends badly with icing turning a lavender color since it’s tricky to add just the right amount of purple, which can be an intense color depending on which coloring you use. I found that Americolor lilac is a very delicate purple and perfect for toning icing and buttercream without turning it purple at all.
• Please note that corn syrup is NOT high fructose corn syrup and doesn’t even have the same chemical makeup. Corn syrup is pure glucose. If you don’t want to use it, you could use a teaspoon of vegetable glycerin in the icing to aid in softness. (I haven’t tried it myself, but I’ve heard great things.)
• Don’t use the whisk attachment in the mixer. It can aerate the icing too much and accidentally cause it to be over-mixed. Instead, use the paddle attachment.

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