Hi,
I have been constantly looking for royal ucing substitutes for decorating sugar cookies/gingerbread cookies.
In one of Julia's videos, I saw that she mentioned glaze and rolled fondant as two other alternatives for decorating cookies. Have tried both.
Glaze, I think just doesn't give the same "beauty" to a cookie that royal icing does, maybe because it is translucent, as opposed to royal icing which is white. Coloured glaze also doesn't have the same "body/form/look" as colored Royal icing.
I not a fan of how fondant tastes. I have experienced that it dries up and becomes hard and stretchy after a while on the cookies. I used corn syrup to glue fondant onto sugar cookies.
I have tried Wilton candy melts and I was not happy with the result mostly because I could not figure out how to make the candy melts as smooth flowing as royal icing. So the coated cookies ended up with blobs of candy melts unevenly spread on the cookies.
Would any of you have any tips on other alternatives you have tried for decorating cookies or tips for making better use of glaze, fondant or candy melts for decorating cookies?
My main problem with using royal icing is the end product of sugar cookie + royal Icing is too sweet and also royal icing dries up too hard.