I made an English fruit cake, soaked it in whiskey, covered it in marzipan and 3 layers of royal icing, then decorated it. I added a little bit of glycerin to the royal icing so I would be able to cut through the icing easily when serving the cake. However, even after doing that, the icing layer was hard to cut through and my fruitcake was on the dry side. Anyone have any suggestions as to how I should have done the icing and anyone have a tried and true recipe for a good, moist fruitcake?

I have never made a fruitcake nor have I ever covered one in royal. I can't see how the royal would be anything but hard to cut, no matter what you add... but that is just me. I would cover in fondant instead of royal if you are wanting the fruitcake covered.

I too would have used fondant.Traditionally royal icing is made for cakes that you don't intend to ever eat but keep as a momento and Dummy cakes for display. I think your cake was dry because the icing drew the moisture out of the cake itself leaving it dry.Try the recipe again and use fondant and I think you will find it to be really moist and good!!

traditionally British Fruitcakes are covered in marzipan and Royal icing. I do use fondant a lot now but only because it is quicker.

How far in advance did you make the cake and how often did you feed it.

How much glycerine did you use in your icing.

I normally make my cakes at least 3-6 months ahead and feed them with a couple of tablespoons of alcohol once a week.

I use 1 teaspoon of glycerine to to evry 1lb of icing sugar

I grew up in England and remember making fruit cakes well in advance of christmas and my grandpa made wedding cakes too. As kids we loved the royal icing although you would almost break your teeth on it and the marzipan was so good, but we would always leave the fruit cake.

mix your whiskey with simple syrup before soaking the cake. It will help with the moisture. As far as the RI goes, I would suggest either adding some more glycerin or corn syrup to it, or switch to a powdered sugar glaze that will give you the same taste/finish as RI, but not break your teeth.