Royal icing is a hard white icing, made from softly beaten egg whites, icing sugar (powdered sugar). It is used to decorate Christmas cakes, wedding cakes, gingerbread houses, cookies and many other cakes and biscuits.
It is used either as a smooth covering or in sharp peaks. But we have replaced egg whites with something based on vegetable in our cookies to remove the egg whites smell and extend it's permanence.
The Oxford English Dictionary gives the first mention of royal icing as Borella's Court and Country Confectioner (1770). The term was well-established by the early 19th century, although William Jarrin (1827) still felt the need to explain that the term was used by confectioners (so presumably it was not yet in common use among mere cooks or amateurs).
It developed at some stage in the early 18th century, replacing earlier styles of icing which generally involved making a
meringue-like concoction which was then dried out in the mouth of an oven.
Elizabeth Raffald (1769) is generally credited with the addition of a layer of marzipan between it and the cake beneath.
Piping with royal icing came along a little later, in the 1840s, driven by German culinary innovators.
Prior to that, decoration was usually of moulded pastillage or sugarpaste.
We claim we're one of the leaderships in royal icing industry and our profession is only produce royal icing cookies.
One of our honors is that we only use natural colors based on vegetables, so your children can confidently use our products.