Recipe Review: Vegan Royal Icing

Like a good RPG, this already intriguing post presented an engaging side quest. Which techniques are the best for vegan royal icing, and can violet really make it whiter than white?

Vegan Royal Icing Contenders

Judging mostly by images, I carefully selected four recipes:

• “Vegan Royal Icing” by Meggan Leal of Cooking of Caffeine
• “Vegan Halloween Sugar Cookies” (Royal Icing only) by Gretchen Price of Gretchen’s Vegan Bakery
• “Vegan Royal Icing Recipe” by Lisa Viger Gotte of Planted365
• “How to Make Vegan Royal Icing” by Jacqui Wormington of The Simple Sprinkle

Planted365

Pros

I was most excited to test “Vegan Royal Icing Recipe” by Lisa Viger Gotte of Planted365. In addition to her arrestingly beautiful fruit cookies, Gotte provides keen descriptions of stiff, piping, and flood consistencies. She promises a recipe that delivers stiff icing (i.e. something suitable for gingerbread house “glue”).

Piping Consistency…Add 1/8 teaspoon of water to every half cup of stiff consistency icing…Flood Consistency…Begin by adding 1/2 teaspoon of water for every 1/2 cup of stiff icing.

I appreciated such detailed guidelines! Also, as the only recipe that uses corn syrup, I was convinced hers would be the shiniest icing herein.

Cons

Gotte’s base recipe was so dismayingly thick, I feared I would break my whisk attachment. I switched to the paddle attachment and added nearly 2 Tbsp (30 mL/g) of water just to achieve something I could pipe. Yet per her instructions, I should’ve only needed about 1 tsp (5 mL/g)!

Moreover, the white food coloring Gotte suggests overrode whatever shine corn syrup may have imparted. Between this and another recipe, I learned that even professional white gel food coloring adds brightness at the expense of luster. Everything I piped with these icings, including Gotte’s, had a disappointingly matte finish.

Cooking on Caffeine

Pros

“Vegan Royal Icing” by Meggan Leal of Cooking on Caffeine is a rightly famous recipe in the vegan baking world. Through her blog and Facebook groups, Leal has assisted countless bakers through decorating the most elaborate cookies. Her real-time videos are especially helpful!

I was particularly drawn to Leal’s long, 8-minute whipping time and recommendation of lemon juice for thinning. I predicted a stiff but pipeable meringue-like icing with balanced flavor.

Cons

Leal’s “-ish” measurements are intimidating. In her embedded video “Vegan Royal Icing With Aquafaba – Voiceover Instructions”, she confesses:

I don’t measure this. I don’t measure anything in my recipe actually. It’s a dump recipe.

I respect bakers who can eyeball! Yet eyeballing not only requires sight, but also prior knowledge. Too much/little can only be determined when you have a basis of comparison from previous experiences.

Nevertheless, Leal’s measurements worked fairly well; I needed only 4 tsp (40 mL/g) of lemon juice to thin her recipe as written. Lemon juice and clear (AKA artificial) vanilla, however, produced an oddly sour taste to me. My prediction of balanced flavor was unfortunately off.

I was also incorrect about the whipping time being a good thing. As I thinned her icing, the meringue deflated producing tiny bubbles that surfaced as it dried. And (no) thanks to white food coloring, it didn’t even shine when it was done.

Gretchen’s Vegan Bakery

Pros

With only three ingredients, the Royal Icing portion of “Vegan Halloween Sugar Cookies” by Gretchen Price of Gretchen’s Vegan Bakery is approachable: aquafaba, pure vanilla extract, powdered sugar. That’s it!

There’s no corn syrup, acid, or food coloring. And like Leal, Price doesn’t instruct to sift the powdered sugar. Perhaps the minimalist nature of this formula enabled my side quest; with such a simple recipe, I could easily test how well violet food coloring neutralizes the yellow tint of pure vanilla extract.

Ah, pure vanilla extract! To be sure, clear/artificial vanilla has a home in my kitchen. But in royal icing where it’s likely the only flavor agent, its fakeness can be offensive to me. Price’s icing was refreshingly real vanilla. Plus, without white food coloring, it boasted a lovely satin finish when dry too.

Cons

Price technically lists four ingredients: Ener-G Egg Replacer, warm water, pure vanilla extract, and powdered sugar. Regrettably, Ener-G Foods is no longer in business. I debated not testing her recipe – If I have to change it, am I fairly reviewing it? – until I read in the body of her post that aquafaba may be used instead. “Jump to Recipe”, though, and you’ll miss this advice.

That said, all my complaints about Price’s formula are similarly minor. To continue, her icing is on the verge of – not actually – too thin. She also writes:

The icing recipe listed below is a perfect amount for 12 large cookies.

I consider 10.5 sq in (68 sq cm) cookies to be large cookies! Yet twelve of these apple shapes later, and I still have about half of Price’s royal icing in my refrigerator…

Side Quest: Ultraviolet White

Color theory sounded logical, but I could not fathom how one of the darkest hues could produce the lightest.

The theory states that appropriate ratios of complementary colors neutralize each other. More simply, opposite colors on the color wheel can cancel each other out. Pale red can be whitened with green; blue, orange; and yellow…

violet?! Indeed, it can. When dark brown vanilla extract turns white icing cream-colored, a toothpick-tip dot of violet gel food coloring will make it white again. In fact, the royal icing will be whiter than it was before the pure vanilla extract!

The most telling picture is the one of two transparent containers. The lefthand container shows bright white icing made with pure vanilla extract and violet gel food coloring while the righthand one shows off white icing made with clear vanilla extract and white gel food coloring. I’m still amazed the lefthand one is whiter.

What is more, since most clear vanilla extracts are imitation vanilla, the lefthand icing tasted better too.

The Simple Sprinkle

Pros

“How To Make Vegan Royal Icing” by Jacqui Wormington of The Simple Sprinkle is the goldilocks recipe of all icings I reviewed. It’s accessible, pleasantly flavored, easily made, and reasonably scaled.

I’m not sure which feature I valued most. Wormington’s formula:

• lists only 4 ingredients
• includes naturally clear lemon extract
• requires merely 6 minutes of whipping time
• yields approximately 3 cups (360 mL) of icing

Other recipes call for 5-6 ingredients, use ultra-processed clear vanilla, demand almost 10 minutes of whipping time, and/or produce an excess of icing.

Moreover, a scant 1 1/2 tsp (7.5 mL/g) of water added to Wormington’s foundation produced the perfect consistency for piping. Add the satin finish and bright flavor, and her formula is my favorite thus far.

Cons

What if you don’t want lemon-flavored icing? Wormington does not include measurements or instructions for substituting weaker and darker pure vanilla extract.

Additionally, I’ve discovered sifting powdered sugar for royal icing is unnecessary. Sifting it “cup by cup” into my mixer with the whisk attachment was a frustratingly dusty ordeal. I also wondered if her recipe would be shinier with more aquafaba rather than water to thin it.

Which is the best vegan royal icing?

I swear, I only wanted to make royal icing transfers for my child’s 10th birthday cake. Wormington’s recipe on The Simple Sprinkle would’ve worked beautifully! Yet by the end of this research, I’d learned so much that I was compelled to develop my own.