Royal Icing = Egg White (Powder) + Confectioner's Sugar. Full Stop.

Photo: Gail Dosik

Gail Dosik, of One Tough Cookie, gives us a time-lapse glimpse of her method of preparing royal icing for cookie decoration (affectionately dubbed, "The World's Longest Video on Making Royal Icing"). A few notes to consider:

1. Gail uses egg white powder, and not, under any circumstance, meringue powder. As she rightly points out, royal icing is just egg whites and confectioner's sugar, and meringue powder is loaded with unnecessary ingredients (cornstarch, calcium sulfate, artificial flavours, whiteners, etc.). The hardcore purist in my totally agrees with this, and once you read her thoughts gleaned from years of experience, you probably will, too.

2. The "royal" is mixed to the desired consistency for each project. The project dictates the icing. This is a great point: we shouldn't always assume that the one recipe we have will make the perfect icing for each project.

3. Um, she is hilarious! Honestly, I love her to pieces already. And she's been around! This woman knows her stuff, so it's best we all pay attention.

The World's Longest Video About Making Royal Icing [via University of Cookie]

Tip: DIY Cornets (Paper Piping Tubes)

Over at Confections of a (Closet) Master Baker, Gesine gives us a nice lowdown on how to make cornets (paper piping bags) by hand - including some very informative photographs. But why bother at all? Well, they give you a fantastic degree of precision, especially when piping fine lines and detail. Also, as she cleverly points out, you can microwave them (they're just parchment paper, right?) So next time you want to pipe some melted chocolate, don't bother with a clumsy, awkward pastry bag, make a cornet!

Make Your Own Cornets [via Confections of a Master Baker]

Photo: Gesine Bullock-Prado