Has anyone experienced this? The royal icing details look great when you pipe them on, but when they dry, then turn transparent. What I mean is, I often pipe on a nice white outline or something like a white daisy, then when it dries you can see the color of the flood icing (which has already dried for 24 hours) on the base of the cookie right through the royal icing detail. It's ugly! And is very disheartening after hours of labor. Does anyone know if I'm using too much / too little of something ... any particular brand of meringue powder more prone to this? I would really appreciate your suggestions. Here's my recipe:
1 lb powdered sugar
1/2 cup warm water
1/4 CK Products - meringue powder
I'd say that you are either thinning your RI too much, or not using enough powdered sugar in your mix. I work with royal alot, and have never seen this happen - weird!
Here's what I use:
3 egg whites
1 lb. confectioners' sugar
1/2 tsp. cream of tartar
1/2 tsp. lemon extract
Beat everything together for 10 mins on medium speed. To thin, add very small amounts of water until you get the consistency you need to pipe details.
Hope that helps!
I have never heard of this happening either. I think you might be adding too much water also.
Maybe if you add a little more confectioner's sugar this might help. Also, try double piping over the outlines. Good luck.
Bonjovibabe, is this RI recipe good for cookies to?
I've always used antonia's royal and not had that problem. I vote for adding more powdered sugar.
I use antonia74's recipe but I suspect with your recipe you may not be beating the icing long enough. When I first started making royal icing only beat it for a few minutes and the same thing would happen to me. Try beating it for 10 minutes on low. Also, you could try whitening for icing. I use this in toba garrett's glace and it helps with the transparency problem. Good luck! 
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