Fixing Royal Icing Problems (2024)

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No matter how much of a cookie decorating expert you may be, mistakes can always happen. All is not lost, however! There are many ways that you can fix and repair the mistakes in your royal icing. In this video, Maddie Gartmann discusses common royal icing problems and what you can do to fix them.

The first common issue is icing that falls off the side of your cookie. This problem can occur if your icing is too thin. For the rest of your batch, try adding a little powdered sugar to thicken up the royal icing. To fix the cookie itself, Maddie waits until the icing has developed a top crust and uses a scribe tool to scrape off the excess icing. If a scribe tool isn’t available, a knife or small spatula works too.

Another problem that can occur is flooding icing that won’t settle. In this instance, the icing is a bit too thick. To fix this, Maddie demonstrates how to use a scribe tool to push it into the center and shake the cookie to help the royal icing settle into place.

Finally, Maddie addresses the unwanted craters that can sometimes occur in your icing. There are several reasons that you might see cratering in your royal icing: high humidity, thin icing, or a dry base layer to name a few. No matter the reason, you can conquer those craters! A couple easy methods include scraping the icing off to try again or using a brush with a small amount of icing to paint over the craters. If the cookie was decorated in the last 30 to 60 minutes, Maddie suggests scraping off the icing that has cratered and piping it again, adding squiggles of icing inside the outline and filling the cookie with flood icing. This technique also works well for fixing small areas of your cookie.

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