I'm currently taking the Wilton Course II class, tonight will be the third week of the class. Last week I made the Wilton Royal Icing and it never did get stiff, I followed the recipe exactly. There was no oil in anything. I got to the class and my instructor luckily had some plain stiff white that she mixed with mine and it turned out ok. Today I have to make more and I am terrified. What did I do wrong? Thanks for any help.
I had a similar problem when I started using Royal Icing. The week of class we had tons of thunderstorms and the air was so humid. My first batch of icing was soup! The way I've found to save soupy royal icing is to add another cup of sifted powdered sugar and a teaspoon of meringue powder to it.
For my next batch what I did was add one more tablespoon of meringue powder and started out with five tablespoons of water instead of the 6-8 the recipe calls for. If it was too dry I added one more tablespoon of water at a time till I got it the right consistency. Some batches took the five, other batches I ended up adding as much as 9 tablespoons of water!
Also, if you are using a hand mixer it takes longer. It takes about 12 minutes before my icing sets, and always be sure you have it on the highest setting the entire time.
I absolutely hate royal icing because it can really be a pain to work with. I live in south Louisiana and our humidity would wreak havoc on royal icing. I would turn the a/c thermostat down to about 66 degrees on humid days and of course DH would come in and have a fit, but oh well!!.
Another thing I would do is always wash every utensil with hot soapy vinegar water. DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT USING ANY TYPE OF PLASTIC BOWL!
I would turn the light on in my oven and place my flowers in there to dry.
P.S. it's more expensive, but the royal icing mix is much easier to use than making it from scratch.
Good luck!
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