How do you get hard icing..................

[newbie]

So , we've made the Xmas cake, suitably covered it in brandy over the last month, marzipanned it and now nice crisp hard icing! Well that is what we would like but we can never make successful hard icing. Does anyone know of a good recipe or method to achieve this so that we can end up with the perfect Xmas cake! Thanks in advance for your help

[figure]

This is a recipe without using egg whites.

Royal Icing

1 cup confectioners� sugar, sifted
Juice of 1/2 lemon (about 2 teaspoons)

Combine ingredients and whisk to combine. Thin with water, as needed. The less liquid you add, the firmer the icing will be.

Yield: 1/2 cup

[Ice.Maiden]

That's a good one, figure. You can also buy packs of Royal icing from most supermarkets.

[BigMac]

Try the Delia Smith recipe (p555 of the Complete Cookery Course):

4 large egg whites (keep one back)
1lb 2oz icing sugar
One teaspoon glycerine

Mix three large egg whites in a grease-free bowl; stir in the sifted icing sugar one spoonful at a time until the icing falls thickly from the spoon. Stop adding more icing sugar and whisk the with an electric mixer for 10 minutes or until the icing stands up in stiff peaks, then stir in one teaspoon of glycerine.

Put half the mix in a screw top jar and place in the fridge (to be used later for decorating the top of the icing).

Beat about two more teaspoons of egg white into the remaining half of the icing. Use this to cover the top and sides of the cake using ruler/set square/spirit level etc to ensure it's striaght.

LEAVE FOR 24 hours to dry before using the remaining icing (from the fridge) creatively to create snow falls/icicles etc.