Have you all ever experienced this ripple effect in your royal icing? You know, the kind that goes on beautifully, you walk away for 20 minutes and come back to a wavy mess! UGH! Why......???
Let me just say up front that I do not know the sole reasons this happens. I can tell you, however, this has happened to me on two different occasions and I believe for two very totally different reasons.
Would you believe the cookies above were BAKED at the same time/same way AND iced with the SAME icing as these cookies below?
So really...what gives? Why is one pan visual perfection and the other visual crap? I cannot really say for sure, but I can tell you exactly what I did and my theory.
I'm a heavy icer and I like to lay it on thick. I prefer a 20-second royal icing. So with the circles, I laid it on like I always do and shook it side to side to even it out. On the hexagons, I did the same thing, however, much slower and less even. I didn't go in full circular even actions. The icing did not shake out as easily. The cookies were bigger, and I feel I simply did not move quick enough leaving lumps behind to dry before everything could settle in nicely. The cookie was not under bake. Utah has no moisture. And like I mentioned, these hexagons were baked at same time/same thickness as the circles and iced with the exact same batch of icing. So that is my theory for what it is worth. If I were to go back and do it again, I would thin the icing a little bit and work to fill in the hexagon quicker to assure nothing dries before it levels out.
Ugh. Just had this happen to me. But I could tell my icing was to thick and only iced one cookie before I stopped and thinned my icing. Such a pain. Thanks for sharing!