Hey Besties! With all the royal icing flowers we’ve been making recently, I’ve heard your requests for help with royal icing leaves! So today we’re covering a few different styles that you can easily create! Specifically, a couple different styles with decorating tips and even a tipless option as well! You’ll see how easy it is to add beautiful greenery to your florals. Let’s go!
Royal Icing Roses & Petal Flowers
In case you’ve missed it, we’ve been creating a beautiful royal icing garden around here, just in time for spring! We’ve covered the fundamentals of roses in THIS tutorial. And then several more blossoms and ruffly petal flowers in THIS tutorial! With these, you’re well on your way to adding stunning flowers to your cookies. But while flowers are gorgeous, the greenery you add can really kick your designs up a notch. By adding royal icing leaves, your florals look much more life-like and natural. And fortunately, it’s really simple to add these details!
Your Royal IcinG Recipe Matters
Something that doesn’t get talked about enough but is SO important in the world of cookie decorating is that not all royal icing is the same. People tend to think that since it’s a pretty short list of ingredients, it’s all basically the same. But this could not be further from the truth. The ingredients you use make a big difference in your results but HOW your icing is made is what sets different recipes apart. Remember that when cookiers talk about consistencies, color saturation and common icing issues. Other people’s royal icing can actually be VERY different from yours.
One of the reasons I bring this up today is because the royal icing recipe we use allows you to use STIFF icing for flowers and leaves, that are easy to pipe. And this is definitely not the case with all royal icing recipes. If you want to make beautiful royal icing florals easily, without the hand pain or cramps, I highly encourage you to follow THIS royal icing recipe. And if you’re skeptical, I recommend trying it for florals or leaves just once to feel the difference I’m talking about!
Royal Icing Consistency
Just like when making royal icing flowers, you will need that STIFF consistency for leaves as well. We make our royal icing, separate into smaller bowls for the colors we need and then add powdered sugar 1 Tablespoon at a time. Hand mix to create the STIFF consistency you need. When your peaks don’t move, you’re ready to start creating leaves! If you start piping your leaves and your icing is pooling or not capturing the delicate details, add more powdered sugar. You’ll be much happier with the results!
Royal Icing Leaf Decorating Tips
In this tutorial, we’re using Wilton tips 70 and 352, as well as showing a tipless technique. Tips 66-70 are all the same shape, but different sizes. So you can actually use any of these tips for your leaves, depending on the size you want. These tips are all included in THIS decorating tip set, which we’ve had for years and has all the most decorating common tips.
Helpful Hints for Royal Icing Leaves
Alright Besties, I’ll never claim to be a master cookier florist, but here are a few tips (no pun intended) that helped me and may help you!
- With ALL royal icing florals and leaves, you’ll find that the tiniest angle change in your decorating tip can really give you a whole new look. I encourage those new to florals to play around with different angles so you can see all the variations you can make and what you love.
- Have a moist paintbrush (reserved for decorating) nearby when making florals. This works perfectly to clean up any tails, much better than a scribe will. A scribe will commonly pierce stiff icing, whereas a moist brush will allow you to smooth, shape and work your leaves beautifully.
- Remember, that even in nature, not every flower or leaf is perfect and symmetrical! In fact, your flowers will look more life-like if they aren’t perfect! Honestly, with leaves and greenery, aim for asymmetrical and fresh angles!
Tutorial Video for Royal Icing Leaves
I hope all of these helpful hints have been helpful! Now let’s get to the video! You’ll see the exact consistency we use, different tips, techniques and options you have to create beautiful royal icing leaves. I hope this video, combined with our other recent floral tutorials HERE and HERE, have you creating stunning royal icing flowers and leaves very soon! I’ll be watching for the work you share online! You can access this tutorial video HERE or by clicking on the pretty florals picture below. Happy decorating!
And you guessed it, there are more types of flowers and greenery coming in additional tutorials soon! Make sure you’ve subscribed to receive our weekly newsletter, so you don’t miss out on the next in the series! Happy Baking, Besties!