Have you seen all the beautifully designed and iced biscuits all over instagram – we have some tips below to help you give it a go!
Royal icing is made traditionally with egg white and sets hard so has to be used on the same day. To avoid using raw egg, you can use pasteurised dried egg white instead – this can be made a few days in advance if kept in an airtight container in a cool place. Or you can buy ready-mixed royal icing sugar to which you just add water.
The following makes enough to cover at least 24 biscuits.
13g Merriwhite (dried pasteurised egg white powder)
500g icing sugar
150ml warm water
1 tbsp lemon juice or flavouring, such as lemon, orange or lime juice, rosewater, orange blossom water (optional)
Put the dry ingredients into a bowl, add the warm water and lemon juice and beat well to form a thick paste (about 7 minutes in a mixer on the highest speed). Add a tiny bit of extra water to make it a good thickness for piping, and even more water to make run-out icing.
ICING TIPS
1 Make sure your biscuits are completely cold before you start to ice them.
2 Try to stick to a colour theme and choose a maximum of three colours for your biscuit collection.
3 Use a cocktail stick to dab tiny spots of colouring paste onto the icing and mix well with a palette knife. The paste is very strong, so build up the icing to the shade you want in tiny amounts. If you overdo it, mix in some more white icing to soften the tone.
4 Mix up more icing than you think you need and cover the bowls tightly with cling film when you are not working with the icing, otherwise the contents will dry out.
5 Pipe an outline of your design in stiff royal icing 2-3mm from the edge of each biscuit making sure there are no gaps for the runny icing to escape from later. Once it’s completely firm flood it with runny icing.
6 Leave to harden for 3-4 hours before decorating on top of it. Use stiff royal icing to decorate with dots or patterns, or personalise with names, dates, etc. Use sugar florist paste to make flowers, stars or pretty decorations, or buy ready made icing decorations. Attach to the biscuits with a tiny dab of royal icing.