the other day i made some sugar cookies for the first time and they turned out very nice. i then cooled them and iced them with royal icing and placed them in a boxed container. the next day i tasted them and it looked like it had absorbed moisture as it had become soft and not crunchy like when they first came out of the oven. there were some cookies that were not iced and they remained nice and crunchie. can someone tell me why this happend and what can i do to prevent this from happening next time?

After icing the cookies you have to wait until the royal icing has dried to avoid the cookies from absorbing moisture from it.
Hope this helps.

so does that mean i let the cookies cool from the oven then ice with royal icing then wait for it to dry before packaging them or placing them in an air tight box?
the thing is i live in london where it is humid or something like that because if i usually leave biscuits or cookies out for long they automatically go soft. so if i wait for the cookies to dry with the icing on top isint that a long time to be left out in the air?

That humid climate could also be the culprit. These iced sugar cookies don't like humidity and become soft.Maybe if you could let them dry in the oven turned off, with just the light on, there is the possibility that humid air could be avoided there.What makes me wonder is that you said the cookies that were not iced remained nice and crunchie.
I hope some other CCer might have a better solution to your problem.

It only takes a few hours for royal icing to dry. I wouldn't think it would soften them that much. How thick are your cookies? You might try making them a litttle thicker. Most importantly, is your storage container air-tight?

yes i do use a lidded box one of those nylon boxes. and the cookies are not thin and not thick around 1/2 inch thick. the thing is ive not tasted sugar cokies before other then the ones ive made so i don't know how they are meant to taste.maybe someone who lives in the uk can help

Hi aminaz,
Im in the UK. I've never tasted sugar cookies before, but the cookies I make are always soft because the moisture from the royal icing needs to go somewhere, hence some of it going into the cookie. This can be a good thing as it stops the icing from becoming too hard. I personally wouldn't put them in an airtight container as the moisture will have nowhere to go but back into the cookie.
I don't think you will ever get a crisp cookie that will last if you use royal and your cookies are thick. You could try rolling thinner cookies, baking for longer or using fondant (or a combination)
Sorry I can be any more positive.

I always make thin cookies, decorated w/ ri. i love the cookies, but once they are decorated, i don't touch them. i find that they have a "soggy" feel to them. most ppl i know love it that way, so i keep making them but not eating them... (btw i'm in nyc, not london, so maybe yours got even soggier)

IMO sugar cookies are supposed to be soft! i guess it's a matter of personal preference. where i live it's dry so i have the opposite problem, i can't keep them soft enough for my taste. they start to get hard if any air gets to them. but i mean, you shouldn't feel like they're supposed to be one way or the other...if you like them crispy that's one thing but don't feel like they came out "wrong" if they're soft. now if you actually like them crispy i can't help, sorry! lol. like i said i like a soft chewy cookie.

I don't know the technical reason why, maybe it's the closed box and the moisture from the cookies, but when I put my cookies in a Tupperware-type container for storage before I ice them, they get soft and tend to break. Most of the time this is only overnight, but it's crazy how they can get sooo much softer overnight. I try not to do that now.

so from reading all your replys what shall i do? i don't mind soft cookies but i didnt know how they were meant to be so i thought that it has gone wrong.so what is everyones advice i n what to do? what shall i do in each step from baking to packaging? it will be more helpful if someone from the uk can give a tried and tested advice too. thanks everyone for your help !

You might want to try the process of elimination. Bake a batch of cookies. Store some in containers, some not. Ice some in royal, some in a different icing. Store some in the freezer until you're ready to decorate. I know that my cookies get softer when in airtight containers than when left out on the counter. (And in the summer, our humidity here in Nebraska can be nasty!) But in order for you to figure out the best way to keep a cookie in your environment, I don't see another way other than to try different things. Good luck!