Piping with Royal Icing ~ a Beginners Guide

I'm about to start something that scares me a little, because anyone who knows me knows I'm a complete technophobe and yet here I am preparing to start a blog on the different areas of Cake Decorating and Sugarcraft. I decided to start with piping skills as this is what I'm currently teaching at my local Community College. I thought it would be useful for my students to look back each week at what they learnt in class and then thought  why not do it so anyone else who was interested could join in too. So here goes!

Everyone admires beautiful Royal iced work. They ooh and ahh at the fine techniques used to create the wonderful pieces of work you see at exhibitions etc. Now every workman starts off with their tools and to start this guide I will show you some of the basic equipment you will need.

The equipment you will need to follow this guide is as follows:

Cellophane
Piping bags
Piping tubes/tips: 1, 2, 3, 42, 59,21 (I use PME nozzles)
Cupplers
Straight edge
Side scrapers
A variety of palette knives
Different sized paintbrushes
Scissors
Small bowl for water
Egg whites or dried egg albumen
Icing sugar/confectioner's sugar
Food grade colours
Plastic bowls
Turntable

This is not the be all and end of the equipment list, but this is what I will be using in my royal icing blogs over the next few weeks.
In each blog I will take through the basic stage of piping with royal icing. Each week I hope you'll build up your skills and gain confidence.

So I hope you'll come on this journey with me.

Marcia x