Skip to content
Helpful Tips for Writing with Royal Icing

Helpful Tips for Writing with Royal Icing

We frequently get asked for tips about how you can improve your writing technique for writing with royal icing, so we've compiled our best tips into this blog post! 

Consistency 

One of the most important parts of writing with royal icing is making sure the consistency is right.

Too Thin: If your icing is too thin, you’ll notice your letters spreading out into each other as you write, or as the icing dries.

Too Thick: If your icing is too thick, you’ll notice that you have to apply a lot of pressure while you write, and the lines of the letters are breaking off as you’re writing.

Finding the right consistency will take some trial and error. Experiment with your icing consistency until you find what works best for you! We find that a 15-25 second consistency works very well for writing with royal icing – similar to that of peanut butter.

Pressure

How much pressure you apply to your piping bag will determine the size and thickness of your lettering.

If you’re writing with a non-script font, try to keep your pressure the same for each word – this will help the line thickness stay consistent.

If you’re using a script or cursive font, you’ll need to vary your pressure – these types of fonts typically require a combination of thick and thin lines.

A general rule of thumb for piping script fonts is to use less pressure on the upstrokes and more pressure on the downstrokes.

Piping Tips

The tip that you use will make a huge difference in your writing skills. I always reach for a PME writing tip.

You’ll notice that some tips have a seam in the middle, which could cause your icing to change direction as it comes out while you’re writing. PME tips don’t have this, which makes them ideal for many writing projects.

Product Links

PME Writer Tube 1.5

All Piping Tips

Tipless Bags

When you’re writing with royal icing, you’ll want to lift your icing tip up from your surface more than you would if you were writing in cursive with a pen or pencil.

In the graphic below, you’ll observe Sarah lifting her tip from the parchment paper in between most letters, and sometimes in between different strokes of the same letter. If she wrote in just one continuous motion without lifting her piping bag, the flow of the icing would become too heavy and could create letters that are too thick, or that spread into each other.

 

Finally, the #1 thing you can do to improve your royal icing writing is practice! Watch our Instagram Reel below to see our favorite way to practice writing.

Previous article Coconut Spice Cookie Recipe, Puerto Rican Coquito Inspired

Leave a comment

Comments must be approved before appearing

* Required fields

  • how to make stained glass cookies

    How to Make Stained Glass Cookies

    One of the prettiest trends in springtime cookies (in my opinion) is the stained glass window cookie. I love how simple and yet ornate they are, so I wanted to see if I could recreate this effect on some simple...

    Read now
  • Get Your Green On

    Get Your Green On

    Shop by color: Green Edition This blog article features a collection of all of our green-themed cookie and cake-decorating supplies. Grab these green-colored goodies before they disappear forever because a lot of these products are currently on clearance! From glitter...

    Read now
  • satin ice products

    Satin Ice Products

    Satin Ice: What it is, and Why You Should Give it a Try! Here at The Cookie Countess, we are always on the lookout for products that can make a cookier’s life easier. But what exactly is a “cookier”?  Is...

    Read now