I am trying to make royal icing drop flowers but am having a difficult time. My icing seemed too thick and wouldn't hardly move through the tip, which also was the wrong one and ended up being too small. I followed wilton's recipe but it was too thick. Let's see... Oh! I can't get the color right either. I need a dark blue, cobalt, or more like royal blue. When I take Wilton's color and put a dab on my finger and rub it on paper it's the perfect blue. But, i would probably have to use the whole thing to achieve that blue w/ a batch of icing. Is the color going to affect the outcome or the taste? There has to be a way to get it darker. I tried adding black but it made it too much of a gray/blue and I need a sharp dark blue -like the blue on a Crisco can. Any suggestions?!

Can't really help with the color, but, add drops of water to thin the icing a bit. Add the water very slowly, you can add, but you can not take it back. Don't give up RI is wonderful to work with.

Are you starting with royal blue?
It does take a lot to color the RI but no one ususally eats things made of of it, so don't worry about the taste. Also if yu can let it rest the color will deepen. Are you using paste or gel color, I've always used the paste and haven't had problems achieving the right color, I haven't used the paste.

Jibbies

Any liquid you add to royal icing will thin it so i would work on your coloring first. then add water a little at a time. Your coloring should not change the taste and most people don't eat the flowers anyway. Because they get to hard( the kids might). If you are not sure of the correct color,
i would take out a little in a bowl and add color to it until you get the color you are looking for, write or remember what you did to achive that color.
sometimes it takes the whole container to get the color just right. Also let
a small bit of the sample color you made dry, because sometimes when colors dry they change color. (darker most of the time.) Hope this helps.

I usually find my RI to be too thick at first. Water thins it.
You need to add more of the same blue to darken it. You'll do better if you don't color the whole batch of icing. A batch of icing makes MANY MANY drop flowers; so, you probably don't need the whole batch just for blue flowers ... you'll have blue flowers for years! Save some of the icing you already made for lighter blue and mix a little red in some of it for a shade of purple. It's good to have drop flowers on hand of different colors.

Thanks everyone. I am using Wilton's colors, they are in the little containers and are a gel consistancy. I noticed that the RI did darken since last night a bit so maybe I'll add more blue to it. Thanks for all the tips -keep them coming!