Easy Homemade Royal Icing Recipe
Do you want to learn how to make icing? Well, this homemade icing is so simple to make! You probably have all of the ingredients to make this icing in your pantry right now.
You will find that it will take you the same amount of time to make this icing as it would take to get in your car, go to the store, pay and come back home. Believe me, I know that buying icing is so easy and it is inexpensive! Sometimes the convenience of *not* having to buy something is more convenient!
Easy Royal Icing Ingredients
- 3 cups, Powdered Sugar
- 1/4 cup, Milk
- 1/4 cup, Light Corn Syrup
- 2 tsp, Almond Extract
- Food Coloring Gels (any colors)
- Decorating Squeeze Bottles or Icing Bags
Use our favorite long handle measuring spoons to measure and stir the ingredients together without much mess!
Easy Royal Icing Directions
- In a large mixing bowl, add your powdered sugar.
- Slowing add in your milk, corn syrup, and almond extract while mixing with a hand mixer on low.
- Once all your ingredients are mixed well you can turn up the mixer a notch.
- After about a minutes you should have a thick smooth icing.
- Separate your icing into 4 small bowls, add a drop of your food coloring to each one and mix.
- Carefully pour your icing into your decorating bottle or icing bags and have fun decorating!
The colors are only limited by your imagination especially if you have a large pack of food coloring gels! Pick up these plastic squeeze bottles to make decorating less messy too!
This homemade icing recipe is a go-to recipe we use every single year! Use it to make icing for sugar cookies or for decorating goodies that call for icing. It's super easy because that's all I have time to do!
Find MORE Recipes HERE
Easy Homemade Royal Icing Recipe
Learn how to make icing with this easy Royal Icing recipe. It is great to make for decorating sugar cookies!
Ingredients
- 3 cups, Powdered Sugar
- 1/4 cup, Milk
- 1/4 cup, Light Corn Syrup
- 2 tsp, Almond Extract
- Food Coloring Gels (any colors)
- Decorating Squeeze Bottles or Icing Bags
Instructions
- In a large mixing bowl, add your powdered sugar.
- Slowing add in your milk, corn syrup, and almond extract while mixing with a hand mixer on low.
- Once all your ingredients are mixed well you can turn up the mixer a notch.
- After about a minutes you should have a thick smooth icing.
- Separate your icing into 4 small bowls, add a drop of your food coloring to each one and mix.
- Carefully pour your icing into your decorating bottle or icing bags and have fun decorating!
Notes
Use our favorite long handle measuring spoons to measure and stir the ingredients together without much mess!
Disclosure: This post contains a link to an affiliate and support this site. See my Disclaimer Policy for additional information.
Hey Andrea, thanks for the recipe, just wanted to add for those who can’t use corn products or do not have any corn syrup that simple syrup works well and it is simply made with sugar. The result was still great, thank you for the tip on using plastic squirt bottles!
Great suggestion Sophie! Thanks for stopping by!
Thanks, I will cook it for my family
Hope they like it ;)
Can you make this without the almond extract?
Keli, yes you can. Substitute vanilla extract instead if you want.
Will this turn hard on cookies…. I am looking for one that won’t be siogt
Hi. I want to ask if is royal using too stiff for russian icing tips? Thank you. I just start cupcakes and cakes business (so far I’m still working on my web site) ;)
Hi Lucia, I don’t know if this would work with russian icing tips. It’s a true royal icing that has more of a liquidy texture.
Do you know how long the icing keeps? I️ would like to make it a day n advance of using.
Thanks! Sounds yummy!
Shanda, you would be safe to keep it within a few days. I wouldn’t keep it much past that since there is milk in it. HTH!
Does this have to be stored in the refrigerator or is it ok out? Also does it harden to be able to stack cookies???
Lindsay, it’s ok to keep out for a while as we did just this past weekend. It does harden on the cookies so you will need to leave them out for a while to dry and then you can stack them just fine.
Can you make the icing in advance and store in the squeeze bottles? How can you bring the icing back to life to continue icing cookies?
K, yes you can make in advance and store in the squeeze bottles. If it becomes too thick, add a tablespoon of milk to it and shake up.
Royal
Does this harden on cookies the way royal icing with egg yolk does?
Angela, yes, the icing does harden on the cookies!
It’s it good for piping and flooding do I have to changing anything
Alicia, this icing won’t be good for icing as it is runny but it hardens. You will want to either apply with a squirt bottle like is shown in the picture or use a knife and spread around.
Thank You for sharing!
Will this icing crust at all? For intricate decorating.
Can you use water instead of milk?
Thank you.
I made the icing using Wilton die. The colors bleed after a day. Do you know why it would do this? TIA
Hi, can I freeze the icing and reuse?
Thank for sharing, I tried another recipe yesterday which made of icing sugar and butter with some milk. The consistant was not settled and took many hours to get dry. So im going to try this one today.
How long does it take to harden?
Can Almond milk be used instead of milk?
Love this recipe. Has made icing cookies so much easier. Once they have time to dry they stack fine. My family loves it!!
Could this be used for gingerbread houses?
Baking cookies & looking for icing, this is the one that I use. I can’t use Almond extract, NUT ALLERGY. What else can I use?
I followed your recipe last night and It’s super easy to make but, I found the consistency a little bit runny… Should I add more flower next time to thicken up?
hi ,thanks for the recipe but can i use honey instead of corn syrup..
How long until dry so I can pack them??