I am trying to make poinsettia flowers for a Christmas cake. I made royal icing-stiff. I'm using tip 352 as stated in the Wilton 3 book-they are running together. Does it matter if I use a plastic decorating bag or do I need parchement? I am SOOOOOOOOOOOO frustrated!!!! Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!!!!

Mine did that in my Wilton 3 class. The teacher told me my hands may have been too warm

I've done them since and the only difference is that I made my icing really, really stiff when doing those flowers with the nails.
Don't know if this helped but your not alone

You may want to use the disposable plastic bags, because if you are using a regular bag that you have put Butter Cream in before it is going to make the royal icing not stiff because of the grease that is still left in the bag. Also if it was raining or moist out sometimes that causes the icing to not come out right. hope it works out for you!

Nicole!

If your RI goes into the bag stiff and comes out the other end runny, then your bag has a trace of grease. That's why I always use disposable when I am working with RI.. HTH

I used a new disposable (plastic) bag and made sure the coupler and tip were cleaned so I don't think it's grease. Could be my warm hands-how do I change that? How about BC poinsettias-stiff icing as well? I don't need the cake until Sun. but I wanted to get a head start! Thanks so far for the suggestions!

sometimes your hands are the culprit. Just toss the offending bag(s) in to the freezer for a coupla minutes til it firms up again.
Another thing, try wearing exam gloves and see if that doesn't insulate your bags a little bit better.

Buttercream poinsettia's - stiff icing also. It just seems to do better for me.
Warm hands - depending on where you are, go outside Just kidding!!
Another one of my teachers always had "warm hand" problems. She actually put ice cubes into a ziploc bag and while working, would place her "squeezing" hand on the ziploc occasionally to cool her hand. Guess it wouldn't hurt to try?
You could practice doing the buttercream flowers before Sunday and see how they do and which ones you like better.
Good Luck

I actually just finished buttercream poinsettias on cupcakes. I tried the 352 tip and super stiff icing but it was too stiff and the petals were too small. I thinned it up a little (actually getting the stuff out of the bag does prove helpful oddly enough) and used a 366 tip instead and they turned out much better. I liked doing the buttercream poinsettias MUCH better than the royal but again, with the 366 they're also much bigger. The pictures will be posted in just a couple minutes (I hope) so you can see but with that tip they actually completely covered the cupcakes.

I'll try the buttercream tomorrow. I think I'll also get a tip 366. I only need a half dozen or so!! And I thought these were some of the easier flowers to do. Thanks for all the suggestions!