last night i decorated 130 sugar cookies with royal icing (using the same recipe i have used a million times - icing sugar, meringue and water)

half of each cookie was decorated in maroon and the other half in grey. this morning the grey has dried perfectly and the maroon side is still somewhat wet. i am sure the problem is a result of needing a lot of gel colour to achieve the right shade, but i have never had this happen before

does anyone have any advice on what i might do to fix this? i am going to wait and see what they are like tonight, but wonder if i could try putting them in the oven on a low temp?

any tips, advice, suggestions are greatly appreciated!!

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-682845-ratio.html


You've added too much colouring (which doesn't dry solid in and of itself) to your mixture, throwing off the ratio of liquids/icing sugar that it needs to firm up.

If it doesn't improve in the next few hours, you can try dusting that area with sanding/sparkling sugar. That should at least allow you to package them or pack them up without a huge mess....if not actually firming them up with the addition of the sugar coating.

I've not tried the oven trick, but like baking a meringue in the oven.....it should work. I'd go in at a super LOW temp though, or you risk even more damage. (100-150 degrees? I'm not even sure what to suggest. )

Sorry this happened to you. Best bet is to use Americolor next time. You only need a bit of coloring to achieve the darker/deeper shades and that won't ruin your icing.

I just did a bunch of red ribbons last week and had this problem. From reading on here, we did in fact add too much colouring. My cookies
actually did finally firm up, but they required a whole extra day to firm up than usual. Not always possible when made for a specific day. FYI for future, apparently americolour is way better for tinting those deep
tones. Ive never tried it, as it's only available to me online, but might be worth the hassle.

I buy my americolor from www.coppergifts.com. They are having a $6 flat rate shipping right now. And they ship fast too. It's so worth getting the americolor brand.

I read a post on flickr by a very experience decorator (Sweet Sugar Belle in Texas) she had the same problem this week for the 1st time, she said she felt it was due to the intense humidity due to the storms.

I think in this instance that it was the intense maroon colouring. If it weren't drying due to humidity, the grey would have remaining wet too and not "dried perfectly" as the OP noted.

Humidity does factor in to increased drying time for sure....but I think it wasn't the main problem this time.

Be very, very careful about putting them in the oven on low heat. I had a disaster happen when I tried that. Do you have a fan you can put them under? I have heard of people putting them in the oven with just the light on. Just watch out for that heat if you turn the oven on.