4 royal icing recipes

Classic Cafe Royale: hot strong coffee with flambeed brandy and a sugar cube. A dramatic 3-ingredient after-dinner coffee drink with a tableside flame presentation.

Lemon snowflake cookies with a tender lemon-zest dough rolled thin, cut with fluted cutters, and decorated with lemon royal icing piped into snowflake patterns. A beautiful holiday cookie.

Classic Christmas cut-out sugar cookies with clean edges that hold their shape. A simple butter-and-shortening dough that rolls thin, bakes crisp, and takes royal icing like a dream.

Gingerbread icing that dries rock-hard for gluing gingerbread houses and piping crisp royal-icing details. Three ingredients, stiff peaks, no egg whites.