Flood Icing - What Am I Doing Wrong?
Decorating By Panda-monium Updated 31 Jul 2006 , 6:56am by Panda-monium
I have issues with flood icing (royal icing). I am not confident enough to pipe straight on to my cake so I do my design on waxed paper. Can anyone help me because my design normally cracks when I am trying to remove it from the paper.
Please keep it simple as I am a newbie and some of the terms I use in the UK are different to the US.
First are you letting your piece dry long enough? If it is not completely dry they tend to break really easily.
To remove the piece you can do a few things, some will use a piece of string or dental floss to run under the piece. I have also heard about people running a spatula under them as well.
You can also take your piece to counter with a sharp edge. Gently place your hand over the piece and slowly pull the wax paper down (over the sharp edge) while you slowly push your piece closer to and over the edge. You will do this until you are about half way through your piece. Then you can turn it around, and do the same until you reach the middle at which time the piece should no longer be conected to the wax paper.
When using plastic wrap in place of wax paper you can sometimes flip the piece over and just peal off the plastic wrap. Also I tip I picked up from Squirrelly cakes is to use a plastic page protector. When dry the pieces pop right off of it pretty quickly.
I like the idea of the plastic page protector. It also means that the image I am using won't move around.
Thanks for that. I will try it this week when I do my next cake.
First, make sure your piece is completely dry before you try to remove it from the waxed paper. This usually takes around 48 hours. One way to ensure your piece is dry is to make test puddles. These are little blobs of icing that you pipe on the same waxed paper as your design. I usually flood my design and use the leftover icing in my bag to make some puddles. Then, when you think your design should be dry, try peeling off a test puddle first. If it comes off cleanly, then your real work of art should be ready to be removed as well.
Also, if you are flooding a medium to large piece (anything bigger than 1/4 sheet of computer paper), before you pipe anything, take some crisco and smear it all over the waxed paper with a paper towel. Then take another paper towel and wipe off as much of the crisco as you can. This will leave a very finely greased surface that will allow for easier removal of larger pieces. The small amount of grease will not make the royal icing break down or act funny, either; so don't worry about that.
My last tip is to use saran wrap instead of waxed paper if it is available where you live. Saran wrap is a very thin, clingly clear plastic that comes on a role like aluminum foil is packages. We use it in the United States to wrap up plates of leftover food before we put them in the fridge. Anyway, it's much easier to remove dried royal and color flow pieces from Saran Wrap (and you don't have to mess with crisco-ing the surface for larger pieces). First test for dryness by removing a test puddle. If that goes ok, just start peeling the Saran Wrap from the dried piece and it will practically take itself off for you. If you find a little bit sticking and don't want to wait for the piece to dry, just take a spatula and run it under the piece first. (That also works to loosen pieces on waxed paper.) After trying Saran Wrap a few months ago, I won't go back to using waxed paper again unless I'm desperate.
If you look in my pictures at the Classy Cowboy Rehearsal Dinner Cake, the silhouette on the cake is one large floodwork piece, just a little bit smaller than a piece of computer paper. I didn't have any problems removing it from the Saran Wrap at all.
Oh, I didn't know that. I thought lard was any kind of fat.
Sorry, I didn't mean to jump on you about it. I guess, I'm just touchy about the subject, it is really hard to get good lard without all sorts of nasty perservatives in it (the boxed stuff in the grocery store ). I have several old and very good recipes that call for lard. It gives a distinctive taste to cakes and cookies, using any other fat in the recipe loses that "special " flavor.
I'm in the UK too! Here's my royal icing run out/flood out tips.
First pipe the edge of your design with normal strength royal icing.
Then water down the royal icing a little bit (I was doing it too much to start with) you should be able to draw a fork through it and see marks for six seconds. It's about the consistency of double cream.
Then fill in your design with a fairly thick layer of the flood out royal icing.
Leave it to dry for AGES - I leave mine for three or four days, anything less and they will crumble.
If you notice the flood out sinking in the middle this is a sure sign that the royal icing flood out wasn't thick enough - less water next time.
I draw out my design on paper and then lay a sheet of acetate (OHP film) on top of the design. I smear a bit of white fat on to the sheet.
To remove the design I either slide my palette knife under it or curl the acetate away from under the design.
I hope this helps. I think they key is in the drying time - it may look very dry but, if it's crumbling, it's not. It helps to make a few random shapes to run out and check on them rather than spoiling your 'real' ones.
I'm also in the Uk. As Emmas cakes has already mentioned you must allow them to dry really well. I make mine on clear butchers wrap which I get from my local cake decorating shop. I never grease as theres no need to. Once the piece is dry I simply slide a crank handled palatte knife underneath to lift them up.
If you really want to use crisco in the UK it is known as white vegetable fat and is sold under the Brand names of Trex and White Flora
Thanks everyone. I will have to give it a go with the next cake as I will not have enough drying time for the one this week.
It is official, I am too impatient!
Panda 
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