Ok - my Royal Icing tends to be "hit or miss".......but I am bound and determined to get to the point where mixing this stuff is as much a "no-brainer" for me as buttercream!

SO I have a question.....most every recipe I have seen wants you to dump everything in (meringue powder, water & sugar) and start mixing...but I was pecking around the Internet tonight, and one person (I think it was Earlenecakes) said to mix up the egg whites (or meringue powder/water) until you get them good & fluffy & peaking and THEN add the sugar. This makes a whole bunch of sense to me, since this is how I make my baked meringue kisses every Christmas and my kisses are always nice and shiny and stiff, but not too stiff.

Is this how you guys make it? or do you just "dump & mix"?

I'm planning on having "Royal Icing Flower Day" tomorrow, so any help would be WELCOME.

Thanks!

MindiBrad,

Here's how I do it.... I measure everything very careful, especially the water. Water bubbles up so that means your putting more water then the recipe calls for. I run my finger over the top & all around the measuring spoon & wipe the water off my finger onto my apron. I do that until I'm totally sure there are no bubbles left. I sift my powder sugar. Then I dump it all into my kitchen aid & then mix till the shine is out of it (about 7 min).

It's always a hit & miss w/ royal icing. The weather is a big thing. If it's humid then the icing will be thinner. When my icing is too thin I use cornstarch to thicken it. Works like wonders!! Justs add a little at a time.
Hope that helped.

~TC~

I mix my meringue powder and water first in a cold bowl along with cold beaters first until fluffy, I then add the powdered sugar.

ok - I made another batch last night and this is what happened.....

First I beat up my water & meringue powder pretty well....then I added my powdered suage and beat on my Kitchen Aid with a paddle on speed 4 for about 8 minutes (until the shine was gone).....it looked PERFECT!

I then separated it in to 4 bowls and colored 3 of them (green, pink and yellow) and left one white. THen I put my icing into the (plastic) bags with the tips I wanted to practice with and started playing...

the first thing I worked on was white daisies with yellow centers. The first ten or so of these turned out fabulous. Then the icing seemed to get thinner, come out in bigger "globs" and less willing to hold it's shape. I was just using a star tip for the yellow centers and after the first few, NON of them would hold a star shape....

The leaves? well - NONE of them came to a point...I got "double points" (I was using tip 67....I think I am going out to the store today for a 352). The pink was the last color that I picked up to play with (after sitting in a bag for about an hour) and it was just a big globby mess!

They have been drying since about midnight (about 9 hours now) and they still aren't hard enough that I would feel comfortable putting them on bc....they are more "melt in your mouth hard" right now (I just put one in my mouth and it started to dissolve on my tongue right away)

So - any pointers? HELP!!!

I'm in a bit of a rush, but here are two quick tips:

1. Royal icing flowers, leaves, etc. should dry on wax paper or parchement at least 24 hours in a dry (humidity is their enemy) place before attempting to use them.

2. Try filling your bags with less of the royal at a time. You'll have to refill more often, but there is less of a chance of it "wilting" in your warm hands. Also, it's a good practice to rewhip your royal icing after you've been using it a while.

If you have more questions, feel fre to PM me.

I have to admit that I've cheated the last couple times I used royal icing. I used the mix from the cake supply store. I didn't have any problems with that.

Deb

I am a dump and mix person and I never have any problems IF the bowl is grease free I think my kitchen aid make part of the difference never could do it with a hand mixer.

I never have had any trouble with my royal icing. Maybe just lucky with the weather. I first mix the sugar and meringue powder together with a wisk and add the water a tablespoon at a time while beating on lowest speed. Then beat 7-10 minutes. If it sits overnight and it looks shiny, I just mix it up again until it loses it's shine. Are you storing in a glass container?