Elegant royal icing sugar flowers

Royal icing can change an ordinary cake into an extraordinary cake with a little patience and a good royal icing recipe. Sydney and I thought piped cherry blossoms would be beautiful on our cherry blossom cake (recipe for cake to come). We colored about half of the icing with rose pink and stripe frilled the other half with the same color; the difference between the two methods is one will color the entire icing while the other allows only the edges of flower to be colored as shown above.  Sydney thought since the cherry blossoms color ranges from white to a deep pink, the cake would have realistic touch.

Cherry Blossom Royal Icing:

A cherry blossom trail to palatable heaven

• 907 grams/ 4 3/8-cup icing sugar, sifted
• 150 to 180 grams/ 9 to 12-Tablespoon liquid egg whites
• 1/4 teaspoon egg white powder
• 1/4 teaspoon cherry blossom extract
• 1/2 teaspoon almond extract
• Squares of parchment or wax paper, I prefer wax paper
• #101 & 102 petal tubes/tips
• 2 to 3 couplers
• #5 or #7 piping nail
• Artist brushes
• Petal dust or luster dust
• Piping bag holder, optional
• Wooden spoon
• Bowl from standing mixer
• Whisk attachment

Prepare your mise place.

Royal icing mise en place

Sift the icing sugar into the standing mixing bowl, add egg white powder, and the liquid egg whites, 1-Tablespoon at a time. After the 9th Tablespoon look at the icing sugar before adding more, for a very stiff royal icing batter, you will only need enough egg whites to wet the royal icing. Stir the mixture with your wooden spoon until all the icing is wet, there will be clumps of sugar, don’t panic. Place the bowl back in the standing mixer, begin on low speed until the royal icing looks smooth shiny and very wet. Increase the speed of the standing mixer, fitted with the whisk attachment, to medium, add extracts and whisk for 10 to 12 minutes. Reduce the mixer speed to low for an addition 5 minutes to deflate any air bubbles. Your icing should be extremely stiff.

Lightly damp a paper towel, lay directly on the icing and cover with plastic film, this will prevent the icing from drying out.

Piping Cherry Blossoms Flowers:

Prepare your mise en place.

Mise en place for piping flowers

Remove about 1/2 cup of the royal icing, prepare the piping bags with the coupler, tube/tip and icing. If your want to color the entire 1/2-cup add 1-drop of color paste. If you want to do the stripe frilling technique place a small drop of color paste on an artist brush, brush the color from tube/ tip to 3/4 up the piping bag.

Place a dot of royal icing on the piping nail and attach 1 square. Using either the #101 or #102 petal tube/tip place the wide end of the petal tip, angled at 25 degrees,  tilt the tip slightly to the right on the nail. With a slow steady even pressure begin to pipe as you pivot the nail and move the tip 1m to 1.3 cm/ 3/8 to 1/2-inch, up from the center, while keeping the pressure constant drag the tip back to the center. The angle should never change. For the second petal position the tip/tube next to the first petal in the center, repeating the same angle. For the third and forth petals follow the same method; however the fifth petal/last petal should slightly over lap with the first petal. Finish by adding a small candy ball.

Please allow 4 hours to over night for the piped flowers to dry prior to painting with the petal/luster dust.

Have fun decorating and enjoy!

Voila1