Friday, October 12, 2012

Royal Icing Headstone

My apologies to everybody who visited The Iced Queen yesterday only to be faced with this message, written by my pal Stephen on my behalf: "Due to technical difficulties, namely being in a cabin in the woods with no internet connection, I've enlisted the help of a willing friend via phone to write this placeholder post before midnight. The project, which is complete, will be posted as soon as the internet becomes available again." Well, the connection has not yet been restored, so I'm at a Starbucks putting away caffeine and cake and trying to blog Friday's and Saturday's posts as quickly as possible! I think you'll enjoy them; they're especially spooky! And the headstone is especially appropriate, given our dead connection. All you'll need is a round #12 tip, a flower nail, parchment paper squares, a glue stick, a Styrofoam block to rest the nail in, a black food-safe marker like the AmeriColor Gourmet Writer, and a dusting pouch filled with a 50/50 mix of powdered sugar and cornstarch. You'll also need stiff consistency gray royal icing. I gave mine a marbled effect by not stirring the black in too thoroughly. Start by sticking a parchment square to the nail with a dab from the glue stick.
 Hold the tip just above and at a right angle to the surface, and pipe a horseshoe (or whatever outline you'd like your headstone to have).
 Fill in the shape with more icing. LIberally dust a fingertip by tapping it against the dusting pouch…
 …then tap the icing to blend it together and smooth the surface. Tap the flat surface of your fingertip to the bottom to give it a straight edge.
 When the icing is completely dry, write an inscription with the food-safe marker…
 …and peel away the parchment. This tiny stone would look great rooted in cupcake frosting (especially grass), or inside a panoramic egg eyeball.

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