Trying to make vegan, Top 8 frosting has become very easy with all the products out in the grocery world- vegan margarine is a quick swap and makes a great buttercream frosting for cupcakes, cakes, or cookies but sometimes you want to have a bit more delicate/ precise type of frosting which is where royal icing comes into play.

A traditional royal icing recipe calls for egg whites used to make a merengue to keep the stiffness and structure for it. Using eggs, or any part of the egg, is not a vegan option. Using any animal product is considered not vegan (check out my blog on honey for a chuckle). In the last few years people have become more and more adventurous when it comes to trying “strange”/ unique ingredients. One of those is aquafaba!

Now what the heck is that? It is literally the liquid or juice of any bean. The most common is from the chickpea. You use the liquid from a can of bean and use that to replace the egg.

I have never tried it before and was eager to give it a go- especially now that I have some great recipes under my belt but my decorating skills are still less than stellar. I need to up my game in the frosting department! I followed a very simple recipe from The Blenderist and with some additional research found that cold chickpea juice works best so I chilled it and my mixing bowl and whisk.

It worked perfectly. It foamed up like it should.

It blended easily with the powered sugar and vanilla.

It took color well too.

The royal icing piped really well and with my very minimal experience of decorating I was able to easily decorate my cut out cookies. The only real negative is that I felt it had a strange smell/ aftertaste due to the aquafaba. My husband jokes I have the nose of a bloodhound but even he agreed it had a smell that wasn’t quite “right”. Does anyone have any advise on how to lessen this? Is this just how aquafaba royal icing is or is there a secret that I missed? Please comment and let me know! I am up for another round of cookie making just so I can try to make this type of royal icing again.