I was just wondering if anyone ever flavors their royal icing in these cases? I am not too familiar with Lorann oils, and I think my biggest concern would be to make a flavor that still contains that bitterness that sometimes comes with black and red royal icing.

I usually add a little drip of extract to my royal icing anyway. I've never had an issue with bitter royal icing though. Ive also never run into the taste/consistency issues people complain about with red/black coloring either. I use Lucks Liqua-Gels and they work great.

When doing dark colors, make the icing ahead of time and color it. By letting the icing sit the colors will deepen and you won't have to use as much color gel.

If you are going to flavor it when making it, I would stick with alcohol based extracts, not oil based. Adding oil when you are making it could keep the royal icing from whipping up right.

Thank you!!! I hadn't even thought about the oil/royal bad idea combo!

Use Wilton No-Taste Red and you won't have a problem with bitter.