Today I bought a (german) magazine. One topic is christmas cookies and they have a really nice looking iced christmas ornament cookie included. The recepie says for the icing you should use 1 cup icing sugar and 1-2 tablespoons WATER!!!! No meringue powder or egg-whites, just water. I have always used egg-white and ,since I know this page 
, meringue powder, so I´m really confused if this will work? Any one ever tried this combination? The decoration is described as "normal" outline and fill the rest with thined incing.
I´m really looking forward what you know about it.
ok, my 2 cents,
When I was younger my mom would teach me to ice cupcakes and stuff with the following...
however much icing sugar you like (about a cup or so)
put some margerine in (like an unmeasured teaspoon or so)
and add water till desired consistency
mix well
sounds really funny but it was good icing, we used it for cakes cookies you name it...it even got a little bit of a "crust" you could stack cookies...
I haven't made it in a long time but when I made them and brought ot my class parties (elementary school) everybody raved about it!!
HTH 
I have seen some recipes like this - I think some of Martha Stewart's cookies are iced like that....I'm going to double check when I get home.
Why not try a mini-experiment? Combine small amount of sugar and water and see what happens.....my guess is that it more like a glaze - less hard, less table....
yes, your are right. that definitely sounds like a simple glaze or fondant-type icing (think donut icing, but not as smooth since you're not cooking the sugar). sometimes these recipes call for milk instead of water. you will likely not get the nice, glossy depth of royal icing, and such a recipe results in a REALLY sweet icing, which will crust but break easily, as it doesn't have the "stretchiness" or structural qualities of royal icing.
That recipe is the european version of glace icing.
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