Rosca de Reyes
Christina Morales, Caroline Lange, La Monarca Bakery
147 ratings with an average rating of 3 out of 5 stars
147
About 2 hours
Royal Icing
- Total Time
- 10 minutes, plus decorating
- Rating
- Notes
- Read community notes
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Ingredients
Yield:Enough for about 4 dozen cookies
- 3¾cups/1 pound/454 grams confectioners’ sugar
- 3large egg whites
- ½teaspoon cream of tartar
- Pinch kosher salt
- Food coloring, as needed
Preparation
- Step 1
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the sugar, egg whites, cream of tartar and salt. Whisk until stiff and glossy.
- Step 2
To tint the frosting, divide into small bowls. Cover the ones you aren’t using with plastic wrap; the frosting dries out very quickly. Use a rubber spatula to stir in desired food coloring. Though not necessary, it makes life easier if you make two versions of each color — one that is thick to pipe the outline on the cookie, and one that is thinned out slightly with a little water to flood the outline.
- Step 3
Transfer frosting to piping bags fitted with very small round tips (sizes 1 to 2 work best). Pipe frosting onto cooled cookies and let set, at least 2 hours. Or use a pastry or paint brush to decorate cookies with the frosting.
Tips
- If you plan to heavily frost your cookies, consider doubling this recipe.
- Leftover icing can be refrigerated for a few days in an airtight container (for extra insurance against drying out, press plastic wrap on to the surface of the frosting before closing the lid). Before using, let icing come to room temperature, and mix to combine. If the icing is still lumpy, beat the icing in the bowl of a stand mixer for a few minutes.
Private Notes
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Cooking Notes
Cait
Easy, easy, easy. Definitely take Melissa's advice to use a slightly watered-down version of each color for filling; it saves time and looks smoother.
I didn't have piping bags, so I used ziplock bags with a corner cut off, and the icing went on beautifully.
Jenny
A drop or two of lemon juice adds a nice tang
trackhorse
Most American confectioners' sugar has cornstarch as an ingredient. We use caster sugar or other very finely ground sugar. India Tree is a good brand. Check the ingredients label.
dhk
For every 1/2 teaspoon of cream of tartar in the recipe, use 1 teaspoon lemon juice or white vinegar
Cathy
I used liquid egg whites (available in pints in the egg section of my grocery store) because they are pasteurized and I wanted to eliminate the salmonella risk. Worked beautifully.
Kelly
Very easy, don't forget cream of tartar and using thick icing to pipe and thinner to flood is the way to go.
Paul
I made a batch of sugar cookies to go with my afternoon coffee and evening cookies and milk. They turned out dry and kinda tasteless - reminded me of eating dry shredded wheat in college...
So, I made this icing - quick, easy. I added essence of peppermint. Iced the cookies and at first bite, I was transported to the top of an alpine mountain ridge and all that.
A+
Pheesao
How can you make sure Kosher salt breaks down/dissolves completely?
I was taught to use only Popcorn Salt in this recipe. Any other salt can leave granules behind for someone to bite into. Popcorn Salt is micro-fine & there is no risk of any grains surviving the beating. Even table salt can leave some granules behind.
Nancy
Yay! I now have a recipe that doesn't taste horrible! I thinks it's because of the egg whites, it tastes like marshmallow. I added SALT (never have done that before) and it tempered the awful sweet taste of the sugar. I also added lemon juice, vanilla and almond extracts. I made flood consistency for a wet-on-wet cookies, used 1 and 2 tips. I am happy to report this morning, nothing was caved in, no bubbles!! THANK YOU!
Wes
It is a very small risk, but a risk nonetheless. For risk free, you can buy pasteurized egg whites.
Heather
This was my first time making royal icing and this was super easy. I used pasteurized egg whites and also added Creme Bouquet flavoring to give it a little more complexity.
Sally Herbert
If you want to be precise with your icing, make an outline with the icing, wait for it to harden, and then fill it in. It is a neat, and easy hack!
KD
This is the best royal icing recipe! I added half a teaspoon of vanilla extract to accompany my sugar cookies. Historically, I've divided the icing into small ramekins for each color, but the icing always wound up drying out too fast, even when covered with plastic wrap. This round, I used small identical Tupperware with lids, which worked so much better.
Greta Renninger
It can be kept at room temp for up to four weeks.
LL
LL 2/24: Made for valentines cactus cookies. Worked well! Piped from ziplock snack bags.
Isabel
For half of the recipe: 1 and 3/4 cup plus 2 tbsp of sugar
liza
Only 1 batch for 2 batches of cookies
Lou
Raw egg whites?
Jessica
Used ziplocs and it was a little sloppy but the icing worked perfectly for Xmas cookies. Flavored some with strawberry and some with mint. The flavor isn't great on its own.
Aspasia
Needs vanilla, otherwise taste is too basic. Vanilla makes it more liquid and it sets/gardens overnight, as opposed to within half an hour.
Jess Ramírez
The recipe works great, I’d recommend the lemon juice trick and of course adding any extracts you’d like. Also I used the pasteurized egg whites. Another useful tip is to let the icing sit covered when it’s close to the desired texture. This will Assure joke not waiting an eternity to dry especially if your making this for example for the “glue” or a gingerbread house.
Bliss
You can make ultra-fine salt in a blender using any salt you have on hand.
Atlantan
Use pasteurized whites Add extract (eg 1/4 tsp almond, vanilla also good but icing won’t be pure white) Use food coloring gel (not dye) for more vibrant colors For flooding icing try ~2.5tsp of water / 1 cup icing. Icing should drizzle off spoon into the bowl and lines should disappear into mix in <10 sec. Less H20 for marbling (~2tsp, 15 sec to dissolve). For borders: 1/2 tsp, drops off spoon in large blobs For lazy decorating, put cookies on tray and drizzle multi color icing sporadically
Stephen D
A couple of things that may help someone: In the US, I believe that “confectioners’ sugar” invariably contains an anti-caking agent like cornstarch. That can be a help for making sweets, but it’s dire for royal icing. As another commenter suggested, use caster sugar. In Australia and the UK, we have so-called “pure icing sugar” available. This is what it says - pure sugar powder. Second, if want an icing that is pliable when set, add a tablespoon of glucose. Good for cakes.
Tory
Worked perfectly! I used my sous vide to pasteurize eggs and used the yolks for eggnog, this was a great use for a few of the whites. I've never made such beautiful sugar cookies.
Christina Martins
This was easy and tasty - works very well
Karen
12/18/22: same recipe as in Melissa C’s frosted cookies recipe. More comments there. . Ava and I used this yesterday to frost (pipe) gingerbread Christmas cookies
Molly
I used regular molasses as that's what I had on hand. Small pot was definitely not the right choice. As soon as baking soda was added, it was bubbling over. So i moved a ingredients to a large mixing bowl. Alsl, I had to add way more flour than the recipe called for (closer to 6.5/7 cups). 8 minutes in my oven, and they turned out perfect! Topped them with royal icing, and these were absolutely delicious! Would definitely make them again.
Dee
This is the best and tastiest Royal icing I’ve ever made.
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