you can add any NON oily flavor to your royal icing. emon is good 
Sounds like the reason it was too runny is because you added too much water. you need very little
ohh yeah.............
I use merinque powder. I have small kids so I perfer to do it this way.
If use use fresh egg whites you will probably even less water. I'd wait until you've mixedeggs whites and sugar before you add water.
Either that, or your eggs were older than you thought they were. The fresher the eggs are when making homemade royal icing, the better. After 7 days, the proteins start to break down, even with refrigeration.
That said, I am not implying that you kept your eggs in the back of the fridge for the past month. We must remember that eggs are stored in warehouses and back rooms before they hit the store shelves.
Theresa
They might have been older. I can't remember. It was a while back. It was really humid too. I remember making about 75 roses and coming back to the kitchen in the morning and they were all one big blob. I was so mad because I have 2 very young children so it was hard enough getting them made to begin with. Especially since it was 4 full sheets and 6 half sheets. God I had never been so glad a day was over as I was when the cakes left.
Ouch! That's gotta hurt!
What recipe did you use?
Theresa
I thought it was the one on here. It was in May, so my brain's not quite working for that far back. 
Yeah, I wasn't very happy at all. I kept putting it in the refrigerator because it would get really soft in my hands. I didn't really think I had hot hands, but that day I started to think differently.
I have extremely hot hands, and I was given a few pieces of advice as to what to do about melting icing.
1 - bag icing into smaller bags, refrigerate for 10 minutes prior to use. rotate in and out of fridge as necessary.
2 - parchment bags are best for working with royal icing, as they are also heat resistant, and will deflect hand heat from icing.
3 - double your piping bag - trim and slip an extra bag around the outside of the bag with coupler and tip.
My technique -- small parchment bags inside outer sleeve bags in refrigerator. I bought a small table-top refrigerator for my workspace so I don't have to keep getting up all the time.
Theresa
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