Everytime I flood a cookie with royal icing and attempt to make polka dots within that first layer of royal icing my polka dots bleed into that color, what am I doing wrong? How do I keep my polka dots looking like polka dots instead of misshapen blobs.....thanks!

Juanita

I have to wait a while before I put on the polka dots - maybe even 1/2 hour or longer. That always works for me and the color doesn't bleed.

You may want to icing your cookie and let it set a little bit. Then go back and pipe your dots on. If you look in my photos you will see a cookie bouquet I did this weekend. The birthday cake cookies I place the royal icing on the cookie and immediately went back with a second color (I think I used a #2 tip and piped a small amount of icing almost holding the bag straight up and down. For the a couple of the hearts you will see the poka dots that are raised. Those are the ones that I piped after the base coat had dried.
i hope this helps.

I save myself hours of drying/icing time by sinking the dots and stripes into the background too, just as I think you're describing? That means, you pipe the main background colour and then immediately pipe on dots and details overtop in different colours. The details "sink" into the background without smudging, making a cool effect and also saving you having to wait for one colour to dry before applying the next.

Bleeding occurs when two different consistencies of icing are applied. For example, using regular white icing and then a thinner red icing. The red is thinner and able to "bleed" into the other colour.

I find it you make one single batch of icing, thin it and then only tint your colours from that without using more water or icing sugar....the colours won't run/bleed together.

Here are some examples of what I'm talking about....