This is our list of indispensable tools needed to decorate with royal icing like a pro!
A flexible spatula will be your best friend: easily mix colours into royal icing, scoop the icing into your piping bag and get the last dregs of icing out from the bowl.
With royal icing, there are two types of piping bags that are useful: standard piping bags, and tipless piping bags. Depending on which type of decorating you want to do depends on which you need.
Disposable plastic ones: They come in packs of 10, and in three sizes. The bigger the bag, the more icing you can fit in, but the more unwieldy the bag can get. I suggest a 12" bag for royal icing. This bag has a strong seam in it, so is one to use when you are using piping tips.
Tipless piping bags: These are almost seamless, which means that when you pipe the icing, it won't leave a line in your work. these are great for doing flooding work, when you don't need the precision of a piping tip.
Loyal 29 Piece Piping Kit: This kit includes 26 standard sized piping tips, two flower nails and a coupler. The piping tips are all really useful - several sizes of round tip, open star tips, closed star tips and a few different petal and leaf tips. They are the standard sized tips, which are often used for the smaller, more intricate royal icing work.
For the die hard royal icing decorators, check out the PME tips. They are the highest quality tips on the market.
Don't forget to grab a piping tip cleaner so you can easily clean them out ready for the next time!
Scribes have a very pointy end to help burst any bubbles in the icing, and help move the icing where you need it to go.
Loyal Cookie Scribe: a great 2-in-1 tool, as it has the pointy end, but also a small scraper on the other end to help spread icing, or remove any errors.
PME Scriber: available in a thick or thin point (we sell more of the thin point) this is a great quality tool, and has a very visible yellow handle!
Coo Kie Scribe: a budget friendly scribe, that will do all that it's designed to.
Cakes are not the only things that are easier to decorate when you can spin it around - cookies are too! No more accidental fingers in the icing and stuffing up your hard work as you turn the cookie around, just spin the turntable! It's also a much neater process to do the outline on a round cookie by spinning it rather than moving your hand. The more you know!
Loyal Mini Cookie Turntable: This neat little turntable is 12.4cm in diameter, so is for good for cookies 12cm in diameter and smaller. It also comes with two non slip mats to stop those slippery suckers of cookies from flying away!
Coo Kie Mini Turntable: This has a 14cm diameter, and comes with a silicone mat to stop your cookie from moving about. So cute!
There are several ways to make Royal Icing. You can do it the old school way, the slightly newer old school way, or a the new school way...
Old School: Use egg whites, pure icing sugar and lemon juice, like in this recipe.
Slightly Newer Old School: Use meringue powder in place of egg white, like in this recipe.
New School: A ready to use powder that you just add water to. Very easy. Very mindful. Very demure.
Cake Art Royal Icing comes in 20kg, 2.5kg and 500g bags.
BYCM Royal Icing comes in a 400g bag, but also pre-coloured in 250g bags. Don't stress about getting your royal icing a true black or a deep red, just grab these instead. SO much easier!
Make sure to choose water based colours. Oil based colours will break down the egg white in royal icing - not good. Choose a gel over a liquid colour, as you don't want to add too much extra liquid.
We love Americolor gels. They are very concentrated and come in a wide range of colours. This Basic 6 Kit will get your colour collection started, and wth these colours you can make pretty much any colour you can think of!
Another great choice for colouring royal icing is the Master Elite range of powdered colours from Sugar Art. They are water activated, meaning that although they don't look like the correct colour in the pot, once it's added to water, the colour changes. It's like magic! Powder colours are great because you are not adding any extra liquid to the icing and they are super concentrated.
