I just bought Colette's Cakes to Dream On and the large majority of those cakes are frosted with RI. I thought RI was meant to be used for decorations...curlicues and borders you want to dry hard as a rock.
I know it's used under fondant, but would you ice a cake without fondant with RI?
And with or without fondant - what does it taste like? I'm picturing the stuff I put gingerbread houses together with and I can't imagine anyone enjoying that over their entire slice of cake...
when frosting with RI it is a big time consuming pain! I was JUST reading about this last night in one of my cake books. You have to put SERVERAL thin layers on your cake and then let it sit for serveral hours between coats. The book said this was originaly used for a fruit cake to keep in the moisture.
RI is like hard candy. like those premade decorations in the baking isle at the grocery store. Ok to eat but does not sound like something i would put over a regular cake!
That's what I thought...maybe they ice with RI for stability? It just sounds so unappetizing.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding.
It's not unappetizing to me, and it doesn't go under fondant. My wedding cake, 15 years ago was done in royal icing. I happen to love it. And until recently, in my home town, for a wedding, it was the only popular wedding cake icing.
As a previous poster stated, it is used on fruit cakes, to keep them moist. I think in order to make the royal work for icing the cake, all you have to do is add a tsp. of glycerine per pound of royal. That keeps it from breaking your teeth while eating.
I would love to do more cakes with this kind of decoration, personally. 
HTH
R.I can be hard or soft depending if you add glycerine to it.
Its generally used over marzipan not under fondant, it kind of does the same thing to be honest.
It tastes very sweet so its good for cookies and a thin dipped layer on cupcakes. Thats how i like it, thin and crunchy with a soft and squishy cupcake!
Yep amyv99 is right! RI is the primary icing for wedding and christmas cakes in the UK! My mum used to make an Xmas cake every year and I'd watch her sprain her wrist mixing the icing 
and then struggling to get it on the cake all 'peaked' and pointy and 1 inch think!,I'm telling you, you can seriously injure yourself eating that stuff like that! 
you can buy it ready rolled http://www.britishdelights.com/prod_xm303.htm i like the taste, probably because im used to it. i was surprised by the lack of royal icing cakes when i visited the us recently.
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