Frosting Recipes

Halloween is a perfect time to whip up a batch of cookies to frost and share.   One difference between frosting a cake and frosting cookies is the texture.  Cookies call for a hard-drying icing such as royal icing which can hold up better than cake frosting.

Below, you’ll find a recipe for royal icing and after the jump, a whole mess of Halloween cookie recipes to enjoy.  Mwa hahahahahah!

Ingredients:

3 Tablespoons Wilton Meringue Powder

4 cups confectioners’ sugar (about 1lb.)

6 Tablespoons warm water

Beat all ingredients until icing forms peaks (7-10 minutes at low speed with a heavy-duty mixer, 10-12 minutes at high speed with a hand-held mixer). Recipe makes 3 cups. Keep all utensils completely grease-free for proper icing consistency. For a stiffer icing, use 1 tablespoon less water.

Piping

Using a #3 tip, rest the tip on your index finger, pushing the icing out gently with your thumb.

Flooding

Flooding is when you want to fill or cover most of all of a cookie with a particular color of icing. For thinned Royal Icing add 1 teaspoon water per cup of royal icing. Add ½ teaspoon water at a time until you reach the consistency you want. To ice the whole top of a cookie, pour a thinned down consistency of icing into a pastry bag and use with a #2 tip.

Sugaring

Sanding sugar is a type of sugar that is several times larger than granulated sugar. This is what makes it sparkle.

via Halloween Recipes – Halloween Cookies Recipes.

Royal icing is a white icing that dries to a hard finish.  It’s used by professionals for intricate cake and cookie decorations.  While the traditional recipe calls for egg whites, we use meringue powder, dried egg whites which reaches the same consistency.

We look to Wilton for a classic royal icing recipe:

Ingredients:

• 3 tablespoons Meringue Powder
• 4 cups (about 1 lb.) confectioners’ sugar
• 6 tablespoons warm water

Instructions:

Beat all ingredients until icing forms peaks (7-10 minutes at low speed with a heavy-duty mixer, 10-12 minutes at high speed with a hand-held mixer).

NOTE: Keep all utensils completely grease-free for proper icing consistency.

* For stiffer icing, use 1 tablespoon less water.

**When using large countertop mixer or for stiffer icing, use 1 tablespoon less water.

Thinned Royal Icing: To thin for pouring, add 1 teaspoon water per cup of royal icing. Use grease-free spoon or spatula to stir slowly. Add 1/2 teaspoon water at a time until you reach proper consistency.

Makes: About 3 cups of icing

[For added richness, you may add 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract.]

Royal Icing.