Paleo Royal Icing

One of our favorite family Christmas traditions is to make sugar cookies together.  Recently I modified a sugar cookie recipe to fit our new food plan, and now I’d like to share a paleo royal icing recipe with you all.

Many of my recipes are paleo, including this frosting, but my sugar cookies are not.  Make sure to use a paleo sugar cookie recipe if you want to stay consistent with that diet.  I’m sure you can find a good one on this site.

This recipe uses coconut oil, potato starch, and coconut cream to achieve the right consistency.  I’ve written quite a bit about the health benefits of each of these ingredients, so I’ll just remind you that coconut helps your body process sugar, and coconut fat is easily metabolized, so your body can use it as energy.

Potato starch is high on the glycemic index, but if you eat it at cooler temperatures some of it will be in the form of resistant starch.  That lowers the glycemic effect on your body, because resistant starch is a prebiotic (feeds the healthy flora in your gut), and is not absorbed by your body.  Frosting is a great application for potato starch, because you eat it cold or at room temperature!

By the way, I really didn’t want to use traditional food coloring this year, because it’s full of nasty chemicals!  I found these vegetable based food coloring packets, and couldn’t be more thrilled with them!  Here’s a link to buy some, or you can find them in a smaller pack at Sprouts.

Before we get to the recipe for paleo royal icing I want to invite you to join with others who are making healthy changes, if you haven’t done so already.  I’d love to walk alongside you in your journey towards wholeness and health! Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full!”  Freedom from food addictions is part of having a truly full life.  

 

Makes About 3 Cups (enough for lots of cookies, so you may want to cut it in half!)

• 2 Cups Coconut Oil (should be just a little warmer than room temperature)
• 2/3 Cup Light Coconut Cream
• 1/4 Cup Potato Starch
• 1/4 Cup Coconut Sugar or Xylitol (xylitol is a natural low carb sweetener, great for diabetics, but isn’t paleo)

Unfortunately coconut oil isn’t easy to work with when you use it in a frosting!  It really has to be just the right temperature.  If it’s too cold, it’s too hard.  It it’s too warm it melts!  Don’t give up if it gives you trouble initially.  I did have to place my frosting in the fridge for a while before I could whip it up!

Place all of your ingredients in an electric stand mixer, and whip them on high until the consistency looks like the picture above.  Like I said, you may need to refrigerate it for a while to get it right.  If you used coconut sugar your frosting will be a little darker than mine.

I was able to pipe the frosting, but the temperature of my hand did melt it, so I would pipe for a while, then put the frosting bag in the fridge for a while.  The frosting spreads just beautifully, without melting, at room temperature.  Enjoy!