Shoutout to the person who told me royal icing would set in an hour

Honestly, I had to decorate 200 gingerbread houses for a school event last week. The recipe said the icing would be ready to stack pieces in 60 minutes. Tbh, it took a full 8 hours before those little roofs would stay on without sliding. My kitchen looked like a gingerbread crime scene for a whole afternoon. Has anyone else had royal icing just refuse to harden like that? What's your go-to fix?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugowells22d ago

Man, I used to just follow the recipe times too. After my own gingerbread roof slide disaster, I started adding way more powdered sugar than it calls for, like almost a quarter cup extra. The humidity in my kitchen was totally working against me.

patchen21d agoProlific Poster

Read somewhere that powdered sugar has cornstarch in it, which soaks up moisture. So that extra quarter cup you're adding, @hugowells, is basically a humidity shield for the icing. Makes total sense why it would stop a slide.