Non Dairy Decorations for a Holiday Cake

Our niece is terribly allergic to any kind of dairy, so I am making a dairy free pumpkin cake with vegan cream cheese icing for Christmas. I didn’t want it to just be a totally plain frosted cake (and cream cheese icing is not great for decorating with), so I decided to make snowflakes out of royal icing and sparkling sugar. Royal icing is what is used to put together gingerbread houses, so it dries really hard.

I made the royal icing using meringue powder and just followed the instructions included in the meringue powder. It takes about 10 minutes to whip the royal icing. I put it in a disposable piping bag fitted with a smallish round tip.

First, I used a Sharpie marker to outline the basic shapes of snowflakes on a sheet of waxed paper. The I turned it face side down on a baking sheet.

Then I piped the snowflakes onto the waxed paper and smoothed the points on them with my fingertips dipped in water. Then I poured sparkling sugar over them and pressed it down lightly to help it adhere.

Here are the ones that survived.

I made some more this morning because so many of the larger flakes broke as I took them off the waxed paper. I piped them a little thicker and connected them in more places.

And here’s a picture of a really sleepy Pippa who looks a little like she was on a bender the night before.