what is everyone using to make your cookies dry faster? A fan? Low temp oven? I checked out a cookie shop and you can order royal iced cookies and pick them up in 4 hours. How is that possible? I made a batch yesterday and had them drying out for over 12 hours, however, after I closed the cookies up in heat sealed bags, they started to sweat in the bag yet they did feel already hardened and dry. just wondering if anyone had some pointers. thanks!
I've heard of people using those lights like they have in McDonald's to keep the fries warm??? Using those to dry the cookies out ...supposedly the royal dries really shiny and pretty when you do that...I have also heard of using the oven on a low temp....I've never tried any of these methods myself though!! I always leave em' out overnight!!
AHHH!! My biggest concern - how to dry them fast. I've dried them in a very low oven and this does indeed give them a nice shiny finish, which seems to last indefinitely. This is my current method, but I'm investigaing the idea of those restaurant heat lights, seeing as I'm hoping to open a shop. Drying them in the oven also seems to reduce one color bleeding into the color beside it, if you flood several colors at once (I try to wait a few minutes between colors, but I'm trying to find a few shortcuts, so I pretend I'm in a shop and I'm pressed for time - so far so good)
I don't know if this would work, but reading the previous posts made me think of it. Maybe you could use one of those heat lamps that they have for reptiles. I think they are pretty affordable at pet stores.
Could you call the place that can do them in 4 hours and ask them what they use? Or email them? I'm sure they would be glad to share the info. Just tell them you make a lot of Christmas cookies and faster drying time would really help you out. That way they don't think you are competition (even though that shouldn't really matter. Lots of people give info. to their competition, but who knows?).
Please let us know what you find out!
-Suz
With regards to the 4 hour drying time of the shop kalico is talking about, do you all think that they might be using fondant to cover the cookies instead of flooding them with icing?
I've only made them once before (ages ago) so I'd kinda forgotten about them. Tonight, I made them again, and I realized that once the fondant is laid on the warm cookies, the little details I plan to pipe on really won't take any time to dry at all - maybe a couple of hours.
thats odd, when i made my cookies, i put them in the oven on WARM and they became ... wavey... any ideas why that woulda happend?
I'm really paranoid about overheating the iced cookies - I think the icing will probably melt. That's probably why yours got wavy. I turn the oven on warm only for a couple of minutes and then TURN IT OFF. I put all my iced cookies(on the cooling racks) into the oven , and then close the door. (I'll admit, that for the first couple of minutes (because of the paranoia, of course) I open and close the oven several times, sticking my hand in it to see if the air feels too warm, it's a bit of a guessing game. Ask herself "If I was a cookie, would I melt to death in here?"
I use royal icing on my cookies all the time. I've never tried a heat lamp or puttignthem in the oven. Unless I've really, really thinned it (more than usual), they are dry to the touch in about 4 hours. But, I certainly wouldn't bag them or stack them at that point. I have bagged them after about 10 hours without a problem, if I'm careful. I prefer to let them sit out overnight and bag/stack in the morning, though.
thanks everyone - i guess i should stick to leaving the cookies out to dry for at least 12 hours before bagging.
those of you that use the low temp oven...how long are you actually leaving the cookies in there?
the cookie shop that can deliver in 4 hours is "cookies by design". but i read an earlier thread that said they might be decorating and freezing the cookies, so they just thaw them out when you place an order. no wonder.
Hi,
Just been looking though the board and saw your post about drying Royal Icing on Cookies/run outs.
I use a lamp where you can angle it into position.This does dry the icing with a nice gloss.....
I tend to do this with Royal Icing Run outs.Flood one part of the design first then put under the lamp to dry,then do the 2nd stage of the design.It helps stop colours and the icing running into one another.
Dont know if this is any help.
Claire
Those of you who let your cookies sit out overnight to dry, do you cover them in any way? I recently iced my first cookies (yay me!) and I put paper towels over them to protect them and they made a few indents in my icing.
I put them in on a cookie sheet with higher sides. Then I cover the whole pan with foil. It doesn't touch the cookies.
The last 2 times I made cookies, I didn't make too many, so I just let them dry overnight in my Wilton rectangular cake carrier and my Wilton 13x9 cake pan with cover......
I cover my cookies when they're drying over night.
I lay them out single layer on jelly-roll pans (with the short sides). then cover the pan with plastic wrap. that new stick to the container kind is great, because you can make it really tight across the lip of the pan without touching the cookies. Or, I put them in those glad containers (like tupperware), if I don't have that many.
This is exactly one of the reasons why I use Fondant to ice my cookies...NO waiting.., so I can do more at much less time. But, that's just me..
Wondering - for those of you who cover cookies overnight, do they take longer to dry? If the cookies are moist to begin with, would covering them not keep the icing moist, also?
I always cover mines and I never had a problem with them taking longer to dry....I usually decorate them in the late afternoon..cover them before I go to sleep and in the morning they are dry.....
I always cover mines and I never had a problem with them taking longer to dry....I usually decorate them in the late afternoon..cover them before I go to sleep and in the morning they are dry.....
yep. me too.
Just for practice, I made some cookies and wanted to see how drying them in the oven would work. I set the temp at 170 dgrees waited for it to heat, then turned off the oven and placed the freshly iced cookies in. 1 hour later they were pretty dry and very shiney. I give this method a big thumbs up!!!!
ml
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