We mentioned royal icing when we built our gingerbread house (station) last year. We used it like a glue to hold pieces together, and also as decoration, like piping windows and doors onto the gingerbread. But, you can make ornaments with royal icing too, and it’s a great activity for kids (or adults like me) in the next few days!

Christmas Tree Ornament

All you need is egg whites and powdered sugar! The shapes and designs are endless. It’s whatever you come up with. You can color the royal icing too (if you have food coloring). Tips below…

Royal Icing Ornaments

  • 2 large egg whites
  • 2 2/3 cups + 2 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar, divided

Instructions –

1. Tape parchment paper down on a flat surface. Set aside.

2. Place egg white and 2 2/3 cups sugar in mixing bowl and use whisk attachment on slow to moisten. Turn to high speed and beat until glossy and stiff peaks form (peaks will curve slightly). If it’s not stiff enough, add another tablespoon or two of sugar.

3. Cover any un-used portion with a damp cloth. Pipe and design onto parchment paper to your heart’s content.

Happy Holidays Royal Icing 2

4. Set aside your ornaments to dry, could be anywhere from 1 to 5 hours depending on how thick the piping is. When it is dry, it comes of the parchment really easily. If you try to remove it too soon, it will break.

Tips:

Color

Divide the royal icing into small bowls and use food coloring to color them. Try one drop first and add more for darker.

making red royal icing

Design

You can pipe designs free hand or use stencils/cookie cutters. There’s two ways to use them. For symmetrical designs, you can draw onto the parchment paper and then turn it over and pipe on the other side. You can print designs on a piece of paper (keeping in mind how thick your tip is) and put it under the parchment paper which is see-through. Tape it down.

cookie cutter used as stencils

Piping Bags

If you don’t have piping bags, or just not enough for all the colors you want to work with, use sandwich bags. Put royal icing in a clear plastic sandwich bag and cut the tip. Squeeze and pipe.

royal icing in sandwich bag

Hanging the Ornament

If you want to hang our ornament on the tree, it’s a good idea to pipe it with that in mind, by leaving a hole for the ribbon to go through. I like the idea of having many see-through holes but it’s up to you. You can just leave one if you want.

Christmas Tree Ornament 4

posted by jessica at 12:16 PM Filed under Desserts, Holidays, Recipes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.