what icing holds up well for decorating gingerbread ornaments? will it yellow after acrylic spray ?

Answer 1

If it's just for looks and NOT for eating,

use white caulk. You can even get it in a small tube for doing touchups, and trim it on the end to work like a frosting tube.

Just varnish the cookie part first, then apply the caulk.

A good dough to use for this project is the applesauce/cinnamon dough (The three ingredients are apple sauce, cinnamon, and white craft glue.
The recipe for the dough is :

http://members.aol.com/mrsspyboy/clay.htm

I have used this dough and had the ornaments keep from year to year for ten years. (I didn't even varnish them -- Just stored then in a zip loc baggie). I did dry them in the oven at 100F witht he door cracked for a couple of hours and them left them on a cooling rack for another day.

The website suggests using puffy paint instead of frosting.

Answer 2

Generally people use "Royal Icing" because it gets rock hard.
But if you want to use something else, you can try caulk or spackle --though they may be easily breakable.
Puffy acrylic paint would be okay, I assume, and also "acrylic modeling mousse" (or whatever that stuff is called).

There are "architectural doughs" that are used for making gingerbread houses so you could Google that.

You could also use polymer clay (either shaped by hand, or extruded through an icing tip), and in fact you can make the "gingerbread" out of that too.
If you're interested in seeing some of those, check out this page at my site:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/houses_structures_gingerbread.htm
(...click on GINGERBREAD...)

And these two pages have lessons and more info about extruding polymer clay through icing tips and other tools, as well as more on making polymer clay "frostings" etc:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/claygun.htm
(... click on ICING TIPS...)
http://glassattic.com/polymer/miniatures.htm
(... under Foods, click on FROSTINGS, ICINGS, WHIPPED CREAM, MERINGUE...)

Btw, baked polymer clays take clear glossy acrylic finishes quite well, though no sealer is *necessary* on them if you don't want a gloss finish... there's more on which finishes to use on this page if you're interested:
http://glassattic.com/polymer/finishes.htm

As for yellowing later, that usually happens because a sealer is not UV-resistant. I don't know if Royal Icing would cause a sealer to yellow by itself though. (Varathane --the glossy, water-based version-- is a common finish used on polymer clay and it's definitely UV resistant . . . or just use any water-based clear finish from the hardware store that specifies UV protection... don't know if most clear "acrylic mediums" from the craft store are UV resistant or not, but could check them out)



HTH, and have fun!

Diane B.