I have been doing a lot of reading on the forums about royal icing and I wanted to make sure I understood a few things.

I have only used the the Wilton Royal Icing recipe (used in the wilton courses) to make flowers.

As I have been reading I see there is several different recipes that are mentioned with the two main ones, Toba's and Antonia74 as CCer's favorites. I have seen Martha Stewart use royal icing to frost cookies and it's basically the same recipe as wilton's.

Am I to understand that these recipes interchangeable for both cookies and making flowers? For example can you use Toba's or Antonia74's for flowers or use the Wilton's for cookies.

Also in order to use the royal frosting on cookies you thin down the royal frosting (the recipes seem to make up a thick frosting that has to be spread by hand) so the frosting can flow, but not pour off the cookie. And when you write or put details on the cookie you keep the RF thick?

When I have made my flowers they didn't turn out shiny, what gives the RF a shine on the cookies?

Also the last time I made RF flowers they seem to break easily. I had thought it was due to the fact I put in Creme bouquet flavoring, I saw several people use it in their RF. I hadn't ever use it and didn't have any trouble with my flowers breaking before.

Ok, that is a lot of questions I know! Any clarification on Royal Frosting would be great!

Thanks!! Sandi

Royal icing is powdered sugar, egg whites, water, sometimes cream of tartar and sometimes cornsyrup.

Most any variation will do the same things. Stiff for flowers, thinner for decoractions, thinner for flooding. Getting texture right for the task is critical to its success. That takes practice.

Flooding cookies can be more shiny with addition of some cornsyrup and I have heard that drying them under a warm lamp wil help the shine.

I'm certainly no expert, but from what I understand, royal icing does not dry shiny, but it does dry hard for stacking and packaging.

Antonia74's royal icing recipe is a "modified" royal icing - it still dries hard enough to stack and package, but not so hard that it breaks your teeth when you bite into it. In fact, when it's used onteh cookies, it really stays pretty soft, but the outer layer gets hard enough so the decorations don't get ruined. I use this orecipe exclusively on my cookies (thanks SO much for sharing it, Antonia74!).

I've never used Toba's glaze, but I don't think it is a true royal icing. From what I have read, it dries shiny, but may take longer to harden or dry enough to stack/package. But, maybe someone sho has used it can give you more info about Toba's recipe.

I recently made cookies with Antonia74's icing and found it pretty easy to work with. You have to get it the right consistency for what you're doing.

I found the following regarding the shine on a Pillsbury forum, "Shine on Royal Icing!

i just consulted with my friend hans welker who is head instructor of the bread baking kitchen at the french culinary institute and he said that a little glucose (which is a thick syrup, thicker than corn syrup) would do the trick as well as gycerine but if you can't find glucose, use a little corn syrup.


Also Antonia74's how to article on cookies may be something of interest to you as well. I found it very helpful as I don't work w/RI much.

http://www.cakecentral.com/article54-How-To-Bake--Decorate-Cookies.html

Hope this helps.

I don't think you can use toba's glace icing for flowers....mainly for flooding cookies. I find that it tends to keep "spreading" on the cookies more than Antonia's but it's a little more shiny and I think it tastes better-but that's just my opinion b/c I don't like the taste of meringue powder. But in general, Antonia's is probably the easiest to work with.

Courtney