Royal icing for the christmas cake? Or something else?

[SuperBunny]

I will have to make whatever it is from scratch. It needs to be able to be smoothed, decorated with piped icing (what should I use for that?) and then travel back to the UK (in a box in another box).

I used to use the Boxed Royal icing that you add water to but I can't get it here. Help!

powdered sugar, eggs, isn't that how you make it from scratch. Has to be Royal icing. Will go find something and be right back.

Here you go. Delia's the one I used and it's online. Powdered Sugar, eggs and gelatine. Done deal

www.deliaonline.com/recipes/royal-icing,1040,RC.html

Sorry can't be bothered with the funky link

Fab, thanks. Will have to get some gylcerine now!

Am all excited about decorating cakes.

If I don't use glycerin, what happens? It just goes really hard, right?

i use icing sugar egg white and lemon juice. Goes really hard and crunchy

That's what I think I have done in the past. I need it to go hard, so that'll work. Thanks!

what size cake is it and ill get the amounts for you if you want hehe, know where the book is as i iced mine alst night

It's a 8" one but I am going to chop it up into 4 smaller ones so will need a bit extra, I suppose.

I usually ice my cake the week before christmas but have to do it this weekend so am feeling a bit disorganised.

I use vodka instead of glycerine, to kill off any nasties that may possibly lurk in the eggwhite. It doesn't go noticeably hard.

Hadn't thought of vodka - how much do you put in?

Meant to say, thanks Shelleylou

Im assuming you mean 8inch square so the quantities are 3 egg white 850g (1 3/4lb) icing sugar and 2 teaspoons of lemon juice. If you want to make extra to cover a 9inch is 4 egg whites 2lb of icing sugar and 2 teaspons of lemon juice

Thanks so much. Will do the one for 9" cake and hopefully have some left over for piping.

you may have to add a bit of extra egg white to get it to piping consistancy. Its no problem

Sorry, only just seen your question - I use same volume of vodka as recipe says for glycerine (can't remember what that is)

You don't have to use fresh egg white. You can get powdered egg whites which you mix with water. THe one I used to use was called "Merrywhite"

Thank you all.

Next question: How long do I need to wait between marzipanning and icing?

WHen I went to cake decorating classes I was always told a week between marzipan and icing but I think a few days is ok.

If you do it too soon then the yellow colour of the marzipan can bleed into the icing. Also it needs to be slightly harder to support the royal icing but it only matters if you want the icing really flat.

Ok, might only be 5 days but I think that should be ok. Hopefully. Thanks.

5 days should be fine