Is there a way to make royal icing that is flavored, particularly lemon? I want to make some lemon sugar cookies and wondered if the icing could be changed. Could you use lemon juice instead of water or is there oil in the juice that would keep the icing from hardening? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks!

I put vanilla in mine all the time. Never used lemon so I don't know how that would work.

I use vanilla in mine all the time without a problem. I would think as long as you use something that doesn't have any oil you would be ok. However, since RI is alreay a little on the tart side, lemon alone might be too much.

I've never thought of RI as being tart, hhmmm. To me it tastes very very sweet. I have a batch of stiff icing made already. I'm going to take out a little bit and add some lemon to some and some vanilla to some also. I'll see if it hardens. Thanks guys! I appreciate any help I get! I will post results shortly and see if they harden.

I've made RI flavored with orange oil a bunch of times - my DH loves it Haven't ever had a problem with it. In fact I usually make plain RI at the same time and you can't tell the difference until you taste them. HTH!

I use extracts in my royal all the time.........raspberry, strawberry, lemon, maple, etc.

yep, that's what I meant Indydebi. I add the vanilla too to soften the flavor and it comes out really nice.

I usually use the lemon extract in mine and love it. My clients love the smell of the lemon as well as the taste. You could probably use some fresh squeezed lemon juice. This way it would be natural so you would not have any guess work w/ the juice ( the juice may be fine to though) instead of some of the water. HTHs

I use 1 part lemon juice to 3 parts water.

Ok, I guess I need to use lemon extract and not lemon juice. lemon juice ahs oil in it and when I tried it it didn't set. I added lemon extract and vanilla to a small batch and it set up just fine and tastes wonderful. I'm mixing in some peanut butter cookies and some very rich dark chocolate cookies into a box to go to my husband's job and just thought lemon would be a nice refreshing taste after all that ehavy chocolate and peanut butter.

And yes, I agree on the "tart" factor now that I went back and tasted some plain RI, it DID have a kind of tart taste. Maybe that's why I prefer it to the flavor of buttercream. I'm a "tarty" kind of girl. LOL

Thanks everyone!

Ok, so my lemon flavored RI turned out wonderful! These were my first ever sugar cookies and I'm pretty new at piping with RI, so all in all, I'm pretty proud of these. By the way, the NFSC recipe is WONDERFUL! They held their shape beautifully, even the intricately cut ones. I also baked the peanut butter and chocolate cookies but got so wrapped uop decorating the sugar ones that I haven't even begun to decorate those!

http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1475183

Beautiful cookies, Jennzoe! I tried to comment but you don't have it set where people can leave comments.

Your cookies are beautiful jen!

Your cookies turned out beautifully! Great Job!

Glad you were able to get the lemon to work. I usually only add vanilla, I guess I may have to give the lemon a try sometime.

Thanks everyone! I had no idea my comments were turned off on my photos! I just changed that. The cookies were SO much fun to decorate and I can't wait to do some more. I'm attempting to cover the peanut butter ones with chocolate today and who knows what else I'll do on them. I never really have a plan when it comes to decorating. That's why I could probably never sell anything! LOL