MAKING ICINGS

I like to think of my cookies as inspiration; they’re suggestions that exemplify my personal decorating style. My hope is that once you understand the basic techniques of cookie decorating, you will develop your own style, changing up the colors and patterns—and finding even more designs in the cookie shapes here. Paint the spider whatever color you like, choose team colors for the football helmet, and decorate the wedding cake with polka dots and stripes. Vary the colors and designs within each batch. The pear can be a Bartlett, Anjou, Comice, Bosc, or Red Williams, depending on how you color the icing. The possibilities are unlimited.

THE ICING RECIPES

I always make sure I have plenty of uncolored royal icing on hand—more than I need, in fact. I strongly suggest that you make extra royal icing for each recipe. It will come in handy if you want to practice decorating techniques on paper or spare cookies, need to lighten up a color that you accidentally made too dark, or even remake a color that can’t be rescued. You might also want to make three different colors of Baseball Caps (here), or Cars (here), or Rotary Phones (here). It is a lot easier to have extra icing on hand than it is to make more in the middle of a cookie decorating session. What’s more, royal icing is inexpensive and can be stored in the refrigerator, wrapped properly, for up to a week. Throughout, I note that you can reserve lining icing in its bag, properly wrapped, for use the following day. Depending on the storage conditions, the icing may or may not keep properly, but it’s worth a try. If the reserved icing is difficult to use, simply make more and don’t worry about the colors matching perfectly.

Tip: Every recipe can be directly doubled or tripled (as long as your mixer can accommodate it) if you are making several batches of cookies.

Tip: Be sure to use sifted confectioners’ sugar in the icing recipes. If you don’t, your pastry tips may clog.

ROYAL ICING WITH EGG WHITES

MAKES 2 CUPS

I invariably use this version of royal icing, simply because it’s the recipe I’ve long been accustomed to. Pasteurized egg whites come in pints or larger cartons in the refrigerated section of grocery stores. You can store the whole carton in the fridge, or you can freeze the egg whites in small containers if not using all at once.

5½ cups (562 grams) sifted confectioners’ sugar

7 tablespoons pasteurized egg whites

½ teaspoon lemon juice, optional

Combine the confectioners’ sugar and egg whites in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Beat on low until smooth, about 30 seconds. Add lemon juice, if using. With the mixer on medium speed, beat until thick, soft peaks form, scraping down the sides of the bowl, 1 to 2 minutes.

ICING DOS AND DON’TS

• Don’t let the icing dry out. Keeping icing from drying out and crusting over is essential throughout the entire decorating process. Leave the beater right in the bowl, then drape a damp terry cloth dish towel over it. Be sure the bowl is covered at all times apart from when you are transferring icing to smaller bowls to make colored icing.

• Do give the icing enough time to dry on the cookie. This is crucial, especially dark colors on light; it’s not as risky with two pale colors. The majority of the cookies in the following pages take more than a day to complete (typically two) because the flooding icing (the icing in the larger areas of color) must set for 6 to 8 hours. It is best to let the icing set until it is hard. To determine whether it is completely dry, do my Ball Pin Test: If a ball pin can’t puncture the surface, your icing is dry and you can proceed. Drying times can vary considerably depending on how thick or thin you paint on the icing. Use your best judgment.

• Do achieve the right consistency. Royal icing should form a soft peak that will fall over when you pull the beater away from it—it might fall back into itself, but it will never dissolve back into the bowl. If the icing is too stiff (the peak does not fall over), add more egg whites or reconstituted egg white powder. If it is too loose, add more confectioners’ sugar or thick royal icing to thicken it.

• Don’t skimp on the royal icing. Note that I call for more icing than is likely needed in the decorating instructions because it’s always better to have leftover icing than to have to stop in the middle of decorating to mix up more.

• Do refresh the icing. In every cookie recipe, I tell you to do this; refresh is simply the word I use for beating the icing in the mixing bowl after it has been sitting in the bowl for any longer than 3 or 4 hours.

ROYAL ICING WITH DRIED EGG WHITES

MAKES 2¼ CUPS

Dried egg whites can be kept at room temperature, which makes them a convenient option for making royal icing.

3 tablespoons dried egg white powder

6 tablespoons warm water

4½ cups minus 1 tablespoon (454 grams) sifted confectioners’ sugar

Combine the egg white powder and warm water in the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Before placing the bowl under the paddle, use a hand whisk to break up as many large clumps of dried egg white as you can. (Don’t worry if all of them don’t dissolve.) Let sit for 2 minutes. Beat the mixture on medium-high speed until frothy, about 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low and gradually add the confectioners’ sugar, scraping the sides of the bowl as needed. Raise the speed to high and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes longer.

VEGAN ROYAL ICING

MAKES 3 CUPS

Because this icing replaces egg whites with water, it has a somewhat different texture than non-vegan versions. It may take slightly longer to dry than the instructions for the cookies suggest. If you use vegan confectioners’ sugar, the icing may appear slightly gray. Add whitener to lighten it to the desired color.

2 tablespoons Ener-G egg replacer

½ cup plus 4 teaspoons warm water

1 tablespoon orange or lemon juice

1 teaspoon almond extract (optional)

10½ cups (908 grams) sifted vegan confectioners’ sugar

Combine the egg replacer powder and water in the bowl of a stand mixer with the whisk attachment. Beat on medium speed for 4 minutes, until thickened. Switch to the paddle attachment. Add the orange or lemon juice and almond extract if using, and beat for 1 minute on medium. Reduce speed to low. Gradually add the confectioners’ sugar, scraping the bowl as needed. Beat on medium-high speed until well mixed and smooth.

Tip: Saving Icing. Storing icing requires special care. I’ve come up with a way of keeping the mixing bowl of royal icing overnight that works every time. First, push any icing on the sides of the bowl that is still soft back down into the bowl. Place a piece of plastic wrap directly onto the icing so that it is touching it. Lay a piece of slightly dampened paper towel, gathered into a very loose ball, on the plastic, then cover the bowl itself tightly with a second piece of plastic wrap. The icing will keep in the refrigerator overnight. Refresh before using; if too thick, add a little egg white or water.

You can try storing colored icings, but I find I often have such small amounts of them left that I prefer to start fresh each day. If you do keep them, use the same technique as used with uncolored, but be sure to beat or mix them very well before using, as the colored icing may dry splotchy if you do not.

COLORING THE ICING

I have a narrow-necked carafe in my studio that pretty much tells the story of my love for color. Its ostensible use is as a holder for the piping bag as I fill it with colored icing, but I also invariably squeeze a bit of icing from the bag onto it to check out the color and, more importantly, the consistency. As time passes, the colorful strands of icing build up to make it a beautiful object reminiscent of the candle drip–covered Chianti bottles so ubiquitous in red sauce Italian restaurants. Everyone who comes into my studio notices it right away.

You don’t need to be an artist to make wonderful colored royal icings. That said, I tend to border on obsession when it comes to mixing my own. If I want to make a blue the precise color of the Caribbean, I might mix together regal purple, neon green, and royal blue. But it’s really not necessary; simply mixing a drop of turquoise into the white royal icing will yield equally pretty results. Once you become familiar with how the gels behave in the icing, mixing colors will become second nature. Patience, practice, and experimentation are key, as is a willingness to start over if you’ve taken a color too far in the wrong direction, so make sure you have extra ingredients! Sometimes, mistakes turn out to be the happiest accidents of all. The best colors are surprises—and even now, after years of stirring them up, I love to come up with icing colors I have never seen before.

MIXING COLOR DOS AND DON’TS

• Do work quickly. Air is icing’s nemesis, so if you are mixing several small bowls of icing simultaneously, cover those that you have not yet colored with plastic wrap so that it touches the surface of the icing. This will prevent a crust from forming. Alternatively, lay a damp kitchen towel over all of the bowls, allowing it to drape over the rims without touching the icing.

• Do squeeze food color gel bottles carefully. Different colors have different consistencies and come out of the bottle at different rates, so be vigilant at this step.

• Do check the color label on the bottle. Dark colors, including green, navy, red, brown, and blue, all look like black in the bottle. It is very easy to grab the wrong one—and discover when it’s too late that it’s not the color you intended.

• Do intensify color very gradually. It is far more difficult to lighten a dark color than the other way around. When working with dark gels (blue, green, red, black), add gel to the icing by toothpick, one dot at a time. Add more color in this fashion until you get the desired shade. In fact, any gel color can have a dramatic effect on a small amount of icing.

• Don’t stir in the color too vigorously… or you’ll end up with air bubbles in the icing. Rather, stir gently but thoroughly with a spoon, constantly scraping the icing from the sides of the bowl to keep it together; if icing remains on the sides of the bowl, it will dry out in no time and you’ll risk introducing the dried-out pieces into your smooth, wet icing.

• Do look at your colored icing in daylight, near a window, to get the truest version of the shade you are shooting for.

Food Coloring

Without a doubt, gel food colorings (see Sources, here) are superior to the liquid versions available in most grocery stores. They’re more concentrated, which delivers two benefits: Your icing colors will be more intense, and the gels don’t thin the icing the way liquids, which must be added in greater quantity to achieve deep color, do. So, what if liquid colorings are all that is available to you? You’ll make perfectly fine pastel icings, but they will never be as vibrant as those made with gels.