Hi Lynn,
If you are making Rose's Royal Icing from the Cake Bible it is imperative that all the equipment is grease free and that the finished icing is stored airtight before piping it for decorations.
If you are not making Rose's recipe, we always recommend trying to contact the author for their recommendations to the ingredients and techniques in any given recipe.

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Hi, can you yell me why the riyal icing glaze crystalizes? Much appreciated Lynn

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I have read that Americolor gel colors are the best to work with b/c their colors tend to bleed less. I have found with cookies in the warm weather I can usse a glaze icing as the base and let it dry 24 hours. I then need to use pure royal icing for outlines and piping details. I hate the taste of royal icing and my customers are sued to the glaze so I would like to stick with this as much as possible. As soon as the weather started to become warm- my deeper colors on the cookies started to bleed into eachother- even when I had sufficinet drying time in between. I am still experimenting but I do think if you use any corn syrup in your frosting that could be a problem and if the cookie contains too much butter that could cause a problem.

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I was using a simple icing of powdered sugar and water to decorate cookies, and the problem was that the sugar would start to crystallize in the icing. It would seem okay at first, but then overnight the crystals would appear. I tried adding corn syrup and that took absolutely for-ever to dry, and I think it still crystallized a bit. I finally gave up and went to royal icing, which dries quickly and doesn't crystallize. I do get kind of a glittery finish with darker colors sometimes. But I think that has to do with how long I beat it. Or how much water I thin it with. I'm not really sure.

I would love to get a nice satiny/gloss finish sometimes. But I don't know what might do that. The simple icing is glossy, but crystallizes. The royal icing is flat but doesn't show crystallization. Any ideas?

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I figured it out - I was using a cheaper quality powdered sugar. When I only use C&H Brand this is not a problem. I tested this theory and every time I used the generic brand powdered sugar I got the discoloration. I dont know if this will help you but it solved this problem for me!

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I'm having the same problem - I use a sugar, water, and corn syrup icing recipe because it tastes much better than royal icing, and it is what my customers are accustomed to now. But I also get a discoloration, on some of the cookies, but not all. I'd love to know how to prevent this. I thought it was the opposite problem than Lucia's post - I thought I left them out to dry too long. I also tried storing them in a cool, dry place (basement) versus the hot kitchen. However the problem persists. I use Wilton and Americolor Gels.

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I made little bride and groom heart cookies and a few days after I had completed my cookies the white detail on the groom (it was a tux outline and buttons) began to discolor. I thought it might have been due to the fact that I didn't let them dry 100% before putting them in my cookie tin. So, I scraped off the discolored trim and reapplied it and this time I let them dry sufficiently before layering them with wax paper in between in an open basket until I was ready to wrap them. I then put them individually in a cellophane cookie bag and closed them with a ribbon, about 12 hours had passed. All of the cookies looked good but sure enough a day later the white trim discolored again and I'm not sure why. I had used the wilton gel black food coloring to make the grooms. Any thoughts?

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