Perfect your holiday cookies with easy homemade icing
Gingerbread cookies without decoration? That's unthinkable. Icing makes them look elegant and festive. The most classic choice is white icing, which is very easy to prepare at home. With just a few ingredients, you'll find plenty of joy in decorating.
The magic of Christmas begins when the smell of freshly baked gingerbread fills the house. Some may debate whether the joy comes more from preparation or decoration. Kids absolutely love decorating. It's a wonderful opportunity to spend pre-holiday time with children, friends, and family in a pleasant atmosphere. Decorating requires focus, but it also calms and soothes.
Traditional and elegant decoration
Icing is a sugar mixture that has been used in traditional baking for years. It works perfectly on donuts, sweet buns, and especially gingerbread cookies. For gingerbread, the icing should be thick and pliable, and it is important for it to harden quickly. Stores offer a wide selection of ready-made icings before the holidays, often very easy to use. However, making your own icing is very simple. It's not even about the ingredients, since it's mainly sugar. But homemade icing comes without preservatives, and it's more about the satisfaction. Christmas gingerbread cookies will then be a homemade treat from start to finish.
Icing requires only a few ingredients
To prepare the perfect icing for gingerbread cookies, you only need a few ingredients that you probably already have in your kitchen. Icing made from powdered sugar, egg whites, and lemon juice hardens quickly, does not drip, and has a snow-white color with a lemony flavor. Lemon juice also prevents the icing from cracking.
Proportions according to my grandmother
The most important aspect of preparing icing is the proportions. My grandmother always used a sugar-to-egg-white ratio of 5:1. In practice, this means that if the egg white weighs about 1 ounce, you add 5 ounces of powdered sugar. The preparation takes just a moment, and this icing always turns out well. You can add food coloring to it, but its most elegant version is, of course, classic white.
Icing recipe
Ingredients:
- 2 medium egg whites, about 2 ounces
- 10 ounces of powdered sugar
- 1 tablespoon of lemon juice
Instructions:
- Add lemon juice and powdered sugar to the egg whites.
- Mix all the ingredients with a mixer on low speed, using dough hook attachments.
- After a few minutes, the icing should be smooth and elastic. It's ready for decorating gingerbread cookies immediately.
