Do any of you have this issue? You have an order for 100 cookies. Half are one color, half another. Dough is made, cookies are baked, no problem. Leftover dough in the freezer is never a problem because there are always cookies to bake.
Then it’s time to make the icing. And, if you’re anything like me, you run short just about mid-to-end of the project. So you have to remix and match that color. And it never does match exactly, does it?
So, the question is, how do you determine exactly how much royal icing it will take to ice those cookies? Especially if these are colors that won’t be used for another project?
Here’s how I do it. Get out your scale, a piece of paper & a pencil and, if you’re anything like me, a calculator.
1. Begin by making some royal icing.
2. Weigh an empty squeeze bottle (assuming that’s what you use to flood your cookies).
3. Fill the bottle and weigh it.
Yes, I know it’s a 2 ounce bottle, but as you can see, I fill it to the tippy-top. Subtract the weight of the empty bottle from the full bottle’s weight and presto! In this instance, the bottle hold 3 ounces.
4. Now, flood a cookie. One will do just fine, because it’s only a sample. If you’re like me, you’ll scrape this cookie because you’re cocky and forget to make extras.
5. Weight the bottle once you’ve flooded the cookie.
6. Subtract the amount left in the bottle from the full bottle’s weight. In this instance I converted the fraction to a decimal, so 2.625 is subtracted from 3.375. Answer: .75 or 3/4 of an ounce of royal covered the cookie.
7. Multiply that .75 by the number of cookies you need to flood, in this case, 100. 75 ounces of is what I’ll need to make 2 colors for this order.
It’s easy now. I make more icing, weigh out about 40 ounces (to account for mistakes that must be scraped), for each color and there I have it! I don’t have to worry about having too little of a color, or too much of a color. It’s just right.
How do you figure out how much icing you’ll need? Do you have a foolproof method that’s even easier than this one? I’d love to hear from you.
GENIUS. I had a corporate order in December for 75 cookies. Custom color. Ran out of icing after 73 cookies. #fail. So glad you posted this, clearly my “eye-balling it” method isn’t as accurate! Thanks, Gail. Happy New Year! xo
So clever! You make it sound so easy!
Right. Easy.
You know I need to book myself a ticket to NYC to watch you in action (that’s a promise in 2013!)
I’ve never made royal icing, don’t know how to “flood” a cookie and certainly have never made anything as remotely creative as one of your “special order” cookies Gail, but if I keep reading your blog and watching your videos, who knows? What fun. Maybe Mardi and I should journey to NYC and become your acolytes – in a decidedly non-religious sense – in 2013?
Great post, thank you for sharing this wonderful idea. I always have way to much icing or not quite enough. I will definitely try this out.
Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!! I was just struggling with this dilemma last week. Can’t wait to do an experiment and see if I can make this method work for me.
That is a great way to figure out how much royal icing one will need! Thanks so much for sharing it!
Awesome, so I’m not the only one “running around” with a calculator when making cookies.:-)
I also make tidy bit more just in case. Another great post Gail! When i do multicolor I have to weight it several times and write the colors down with weight (though it is all white, it is just imaginary,I’m sure you know what I mean)
Happy New Year.
Hani, I know exactly what you mean about the colors! I was afraid if I included a portion about how I weigh equal amounts of icing and then write down EXACTLY what formula I used to achieve a certain color, readers would flee!!!! But, it’s really the best way I know to achieve consistency. Thanks for your comment!
Brilliant!!
This is a good method ! I generaly wheigh a bare cookie, then I ice it and wheigh it again. It’s easy to substract the wheigt of the bare cookie from the wheight of the iced one, and you have the weight of the icing you used.
oooh….that’s a good idea, too!!!
I’ve never thought of measuring my requirements for royal icing this way but I think I should give it a try. Normally, I try to just guesstimate enough and if I’m mixing colours I write down how many drops I used to create each colour. If I run out and have to make more of a colour, I refer to my notes and try to recreate the same shade. With the colours, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t and I have to bring in the white drops to lighten. It’s always a crap shoot so I think your method would be more reliable. Thanks for sharing Gail.
When I make color, Paula, I weigh out about 16 ounces in one cup. Then I color it, making notes about the ‘formula’ I used for that 16 oz. But, I still make the entire amount that I’ll need for the job at once, because the color changes as it sits.
GENIUS!! You share such amazing information! xo
I love this tip! i am glad i am not the only one using my scale! I weight my iced cookie, then figure out how much icing I need. I also do it with the dough. Cut my shape. weigh a few cookies get the average weight/cookie. Make as many batches of dough to have the amount of cookies I need.