Is this Royal Icing?

Nope. It sure isn't. Royal icing involves egg whites or meringue powder and it dries hard very quickly. It is perfect for building gingerbread houses because you can hold an entire candy bar on the side of a graham cracker house because of its strength. The fact that it dries quickly makes it easy to use for very detailed, highly decorated cookies. The only drawback is that the icing is not soft, it is hard and breaks like hard candy when you bite into it. The texture of the frosting reminds me of chalk, and it has a slightly distinctive taste rather than a smooth, yummy frosting. Now, if you like the taste and texture of meringue powder, by all means, they are your cookies! Do what you like. But if like me you prefer a softer, smoother frosting on your cookies, you will need to leave out the meringue powder and opt for more drying time when using flood frosting. It is more difficult to get tiny little details like lace and a lot of text on the cookie with flood frosting, but I sacrifice detail for delicious any day. Royal icing dries with a flat, smooth finish while flood frosting dries a bit more shiny. Royal icing dries quickly allowing the cookies to be stacked within a few hours while Flood frosting requires at least 24 hours drying time. Decorated sugar cookies have over a week shelf life regardless of which kind of frosting you use to decorate them. Which one should you use? Whichever one you like!