Royal Icing Snowflakes

This isn’t really a baked item, but royal icing is, of course, a must for any type of sugary decoration you need to do — be it roses and flowers, or snowflakes like these, perfect for topping cookies, or a cake.

They’re basically egg whites and confectioner’s sugar beaten together. I use a proportion of 1 egg white to 1 cup confectioner’s (also known as “10x” oro icing) sugar, and adjust when necessary (depends on the humidity of your surroundings).

I followed the designs on Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Christmas Cookie book, though you can always make your own. I also use a smaller tip (#6) instead of her recommended #8 — makes for a more delicate snowflake, though of course, it’s also more fragile.

To make snowflakes from royal icing, you need the egg white and confectioner’s sugar beaten to very stiff peaks, then transferred to a piping bag with a decorating tip. You also need templates (Rose’s are about 5-6″ in diameter), and pieces of parchment or wax paper to pipe the designs on.

Some essentials I’ve found I should have at the ready when I’m working:

• the royal icing in the piping bag, the tips wrapped in wet paper towel to prevent them from drying — do this anytime you work with royal icing.
• a wooden skewer, just in case the tip does clog up with dried icing
• your templates
• your pieces of parchment or wax paper, cut to size
• scotch tape to tape down the design and parchment onto your work surface, to prevent slipping — I put them on the spots where I won’t be piping, and I’ve tried using less, but what works best for me is to have a piece of tape between each snowflake “ray”
• a small paintbrush in a bowl of water, for touching up any mistakes or rough spots — use the water to smooth it out, especially useful when using on the “joints”; just be careful not to use too much water or you’ll end up thinning out the icing and you don’t want that. this is exactly what happened in the picture below, see, on the lower left hand side, a joint that got thinned out too much and has broken off
• a beaten egg white, in a bowl, and another small paintbrush to apply it onto the piped design, when it’s a bit dry — wait a few minutes
• your chosen decorative sugar for sprinkling — I find it easiest to work on one section of the snowflake at a time, brushing with egg white and sprinkling, and then going on to the next section.



You can hang these from your tree, or at a window, or — what we plan on doing — just under our doorway. We’ll take the risk of people hitting them with their heads and getting all sugared up in the process:).

Yena (4) is now using the templates with glitter glue — something to keep little hands busy!