Help! I'm looking for a recipe for the perfect icing needed to make black swirls and scroll on my daughters wedding cake. Has anyone tried anything other than Royal icing for this or is that my best option?

Thanks for the help!

If you're covering the cake in buttercream, the scrollwork can be piped on with buttercream also. If you're using fondant, you'll probably want to go with royal icing.

I agree with texasrose, start with a chocolate bc though so you don't have to add as much black, risking the color to bleed.

I've done black scrollwork with both royal and BC, I agree that it depends what you're covering your cake with. If possible, start with chocoloate icing (I use hershey special dark cocoa powder because it gives a nice rich dark brown base) then add Americolor super black gel coloring. It's super concentrated so you don't have to use as much as some of the other brands. You can start with a white base, you'll just have to use more coloring, I add a little extra extract to balance it out if I can't start with a chocolate base.