I've spent forever making a ton of cookies and flooding them.  It's been 7 hours and they are not the least bit dry.  I think I over mixed the royal icing as it did get out of control in the bowel (but I timed it and did high for 4 min) and I had to add a ton of water to get it to good consistency again.  It looked and acted fine after that.  I think there is a small chance it is just humidity as we just move to Florida across from the beach.  I have a dehydrator setting on my oven so I'm trying that now.  Is it possible to scrape off the gooey marshmallow fluff like icing and re-flood or would I have to start from scratch?

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I have no answer for you except to say it could very well be the humidity — give it some time    The main reason I’m posting is to mention it looks like you could be a new poster on this board  —  if so you will not be able to reply to any post for about 30 days   If you want to say something—reply your thanks , ask another ?, or whatever — just start a new post referring to this one   

Royal icing is the one thing that I've not tried yet, since moving to Florida. However I don't think that overmixing the R.I. would make it wetter.

A food dehydrator will probably be a necessity for your cookies.  I have one that is used to dry my gumpaste sugar flowers, but it will probably be useful with royal icing on cookies here in Florida.

Your meringue may be outdated, check the expiration date.

So good news is the dehydrator option on our oven dried the cookies.  I left them in for about 5 hours on 100 degrees.  They did start to ripple at the end so I left them in a little too long, however i was fine with that because I knew I was decorating with images on water paper.  So I pulled them, put them on the counter.  A few hours later when I went to put on my images they were already starting to get sticky again from humidity.  We have a completely open floor plan so a dehumidifier or fan will not help.

I used corn syrup to attach the images and it didn't work well, edges all curling up. I plan on piping the edges and hopefully that will cure it.  My question is, I feel like I'll need to put them back in the dehydrator to harden them up again and to harden the piping.  Can I do that with the water paper on them?  Also, can I freeze them to help get them to the event?  It'll only be more and more humidity leaving the house, car ride, event itself....

As I remember yes, you can put them back into the dehydrator - but - just for a few minutes.  Watch them and as soon as they flatten take them out.  Yes, they can be fzn but wrap them in plastic wrap well or bag them.    

Thank you!  Any tips on how to thaw?  Can I just sit them out at the event (will not eat for a couple hours).

not to throw a wrench in the works here but i’m worried about the goodness of your lovely cookies after being dehydrated so long — try one to be sure it’s all still ok — 

idk — I would make different royal myself  — I would add cream of tartar to my royal to strengthen it — if you possibly had gum Arabic that would also strengthen it as in helping to dry it so it sets up better — I whip my royal for a long time to stretch out the egg whites in there — and go easy with the water — or I would switch to rolled buttercream — 

K8 I also wondered about the freshness .   rolled b’cream or fondant is probably a better way to go 

Good to know about the cream of tartar, will definitely do that next time.  My husband and I tried a couple reject cookies and they were surprisingly good.  Finally finished all the decorating, now to just figure out how to transport without a melted mess.... 

awesome! great save!

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