If you ever wonder how people do such technical decorations on cookies or

it is usually Royal Icing. You can do pretty decorations with buttercream icing as well, but it's the royal icing that will get you the perfect design you want.

The trick to Royal Icing is consistency. There are 3 basic levels:

1. Thick: For constructing things like

gingerbread houses

2. Glue: A little thinner, but still able to hold it's shape. Good for making outlines on cookies, writing, and making designs.

3. Flooding: The thinnest consistency that floods the outlined cookie.

For my

Gingerbread House

I used

Wilton's meringue powder and recipe

for Royal Icing. This created the thick consistency that I needed to build the house.

... Here is what the process looked like...

A little trick to filling your pastry bag without making a mess! Use a tall glass and fold the pastry bag over the rim and fill.

Here is a recipe I use for a thinner Royal Icing.

Ingredients: 1 pound confectioners' sugar (about 4 cups sifted) 5 tablespoons meringue powder 1/2 cup water

What to do: *Combine the powdered sugar and meringue powder in bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment.

*On low speed gradually scant the water drop by drop.

*Stop occasionally to scrape the sides.

*For the thinner consistency used for "flooding" you can add more water and it will hold its ribbon design for about 5 seconds.

**Outlining and detailing you are looking for the consistency of glue, if not a bit thicker. You can check this by lifting the paddle that is doing the stiring to see that when it drips onto the mixture that it holds a ribbon like trial on the mixture for about 10 seconds.

*Thick icing, for building gingerbread and hold shapes, you want it to be a marshmallow or meringue consistency

*Use a pastry bag to pipe for best results.

Then get creative!! You can use this icing to decorate for any holiday or event.

... Christmas...