I'm in need of some experts. I made a royal icing transfer last night of a crab. I taped my picture to cardboard, then covered with wax paper, then did my outline with a 2 tip in black royal, then flowed in my colored royal. When I tried removing it a few minutes ago, it started breaking off in sections. What did I do wrong?? My royal icing was made a few days ago and rewhipped by hand, would that make a difference? Also I read on another post to use plastic wrap instead of wax paper, so maybe that's what's wrong.
I'm going to try more tonight, it's for my grandmother-in-law's 80th birthday Saturday and I really want it to look nice. Thanks so much for any advice you wonderful people can give!!!

Rzrback

I'm giving this a bump before I try again to do more transfers. Anyone have any advice please??!!

"Thank you for the compliments! I print out the image (in correct size) and tape it to my cookie sheet (or any flat surface) and then tape wax paper over it. Then I pipe the black outline right on top of the wax paper, following the lines of the image underneath. I let the royal icing outline dry about an hour.....you want to be sure the black outline is nice and dry or it will start to bleed into the other colors once you fill them in. Next, I begin to fill-in the appropriate colors! I let mine dry overnight (just to be safe), and run a very thin and flat angled spatula under the image to remove it from the wax paper. Do this CAREFULLY, the images are fragile. Then I place the character on the cake, sticking it into the icing, and leaning it a bit against the cake side. If I'm standing the image on the cake board and leaning it into the cake, I place a little bit of royal icing on the board to secure it. I use the Wilton recipe royal icing, with a tiny bit more flavoring (almond). I leave it thick to do the black outline, and thin it slightly for fill-in colors. I don't think it looks bad to see the piping lines, and the thicker you make the icing, the thicker the character image, and it will be a little stronger (fragile, but not AS fragile).


The Royal Icing Transfer is when you print out your pricture, place a piece of wax paper over top of it (taped down) and you pipe your royal outline and fill-in with royal....using which ever tips work best (I usually use a #2 or #2). Do all of your outline work first and LET IT DRY or you'll have bleeding between the colors if you don't wait for each color to dry. It's best to let the royal transfer dry overnight or 2 nights, then GENTLY use an angled spatula to lift the image off the wax paper and lay it on your cake! You can even stand these up on your cake by attaching popsicle or cookie sticks to the backs of them with a little royal icing!

something i found on wilton.com

For any royal icing piece, you really should not touch it before the 48 hour mark. That is the minimum, unless you have had a fan blowing over top of it overnight. This is from everything I've read, and heard through the years.

Personally, I leave my pieces for at least 3 days, that way I KNOW they are dried, and won't fall apart the second I touch them.

HTH

You can also do them on plastic wrap, then once dry, slide them to the edge of the counter pulling down on the plastic wrap to get it started. (does that make sense?) Also, if you spray the plastic wrap LIGHTLY with Pam, and then wipe as much of it away as you can, helps it come loose easier. I tried the small spatula thing and mine cracked, so this worked easier for me. You can look at mine if you'd like. They're the Egyptian figures in my photos. HTH!

Thanks for the advice everyone. I ended up making the transfers on saran wrap and managed pretty well. A couple of little pieces broke off, but all in all they made it ok. However, my bigger one, which was the Maryland Flag, broke into 3 sections. We were able to place them onto the top of the cake and you could barely see the cracks.

Toodlesjupiter- My understanding has always been that grease is royal icing's worst enemy, but you have no trouble with using pam to help the images release?? It doesn't break down your royal icing?

I have to make another large one of a police badge this week. Hopefully, because it is a larger image, I will be able to make it thicker and therefore a little less fragile. Thanks so much for the advice!! Sorry this is long!

Rzrback

That's what I thought, but I didn't have any problems with it... you wipe most of it off first so it's just the tiniest amount on the plastic.
I got the tip from someone else on this board... can't remember who. Good luck!