For my experiment, I created four mini cakes and frosted them each with different frostings using my favorite vanilla buttercream recipe as a base:

Meri-white is a powdered egg white substitute ideal for the preparation of royal icing, meringues and similar bases confectionery goods. Meri-White is an important ingredient for all bakers and decorators. This powder is a dried albumen mix which is ideal to keep in the cupboard for all your last minute baking! It will create a bright white result - ideal for stunning cakes, meringues and buttercream. The eggs got curdled– If you are using a homemade double boiler, make sure the water in the bottom pan does not touch the top pan. You want the steam to touch the pan, not the water. Makes sense? Also, monitor the heat or you will end up with scrambled eggs. I live in the UK so heat and humidity isn’t generally a problem, however central heating and warm houses can be.I do not like to add more than ¼ cup + 3 tablespoons of water to the icing. Once I add that much water, if the royal icing is still clumpy, I will add teaspoons of water at a time. Less is more! Heat the oven to 200 degrees. Add the egg whites and cream of tartar in a bowl and beat them on medium speed until soft peaks form.

The best substitutes for meringue powder in royal icing include fresh egg whites. Or egg white powder mixed with confectioners’ sugar and lemon juice. Can I use cornstarch instead of meringue powder?Being in SoCal during August made me nervous, but after a lot of research I went with this buttercream recipe. I made sure to test the buttercream on a practice cake. It was delicious! Royal Icing can be mixed with either a stand mixer or a hand mixer. If I am making one batch or less, I typically use my hand mixer (I am way too lazy to drag my stand mixer up from the basement for a little bit of icing!). But when I do larger batches, the stand mixer is much more efficient and worth the effort. For flooding, you can use a round #4 or #6 tip, depending on the project, or simply cut a small tip off the end of your decorating bag. Before you start dying your Royal Icing, I would recommend having a plan of what colors you will need and what consistencies you need.