2-3 large egg whites (I use pasteurized whites)
1 lb confectioners sugar
Dash vanilla
Juice of 1 lemon
additional ingredients: Ponzu marinade, balsamic vinegar, Tabasco (of course)
Combine egg whites, vanilla, and sugar on low speed using flat beater (not wire whisk). Add lemon juice to thin the icing to a spreadable consistency. Stir in food coloring. Use immediately or store in an airtight container at room temp.
My niece Alissa graduated and turned 18 last week. That much accomplishment required a fair amount of celebration. Of course I volunteered for a fun thing--a plate of cookies celebrating my girlie. Because these cookies were travelling a bit between making and eating, I frosted them with royal icing, which is fairly indestructible.
Getting the consistency right is a process—the recipe above will make a nicely viscous frosting that could glue furniture together. I add too much lemon juice, then I need to thicken up again with more sugar, and eventually need a bit more egg white to keep everything balanced. It’s okay, because more icing means more color options for the cookies. Along the way, I generally end up tossing in a few drops of Tabasco because everything can use a little, and a few more drops of balsamic vinegar, for the same reason.
This time I did start with lemon juice, but it was from a Meyer lemon whose lovely flavor was too gentle to stand up to all that sugar. I needed more punch, so I pulled out my bottle of Ponzu sudachi marinade—it’s mostly mirin, citrus juice, rice vinegar, and I don’t know what else but has a really bright profile.
Suddenly the royal icing wasn’t just a convenient vehicle for color flow on sugar cookies, but its own really yummy element. All the citric acid made the icing behave properly and set firmly, and the flavor made those cookies rather hard to resist—I don’t care how long you’ve worked on cookies, it’s so satisfying to watch them disappear.
