For New Tip Category: Idea for Calculating Icing Amount Needed

If you didn't see it, Julia has created categorization to add quick photo tips as well as adding a forum to allow for longer expression of more involved tips. This is a great way for us all to share ideas, tips and techniques that others might find of use to help them in their own cookieing.  All of the information is here:  http://cookieconnection.juliau...p-forum-and-clip-set

WOW!! Now THAT'S a good idea!

Thanks to Tracy/The Cookie Connoisseur for the idea of a tips clip set and forum. We had plenty of spots for asking questions, but not any for sharing insights without questions, so I think this idea (again, from Tracy) is a good one. Please spread the word to get people sharing. I'll also open a Tips photo feed on the home page to make this clip set more obvious.

Thanks, TheTailoredCookie! I started doing it years and years ago as I inevitably would be short on a color that seemed to take three different colors to create and was a nightmare to match again or I would end up with a vat of unneeded fuchsia, or whatever the color was.  This really has been a big help for me and it is great that we have an area to share our tips and techniques here. Thanks again and have a great day!

Oh, thanks, Julia, but you are the one who ran with it and implemented it.  It will be fun to see this section grow as we all can learn so much from one another.

I am so grateful for people such as yourself who are so selfless with all the little tricks and trades of cookie decorating.  I currently have several bags in the fridge that are just sitting there because I have no use for the colors.  It's such a shame to see it go to waste.  What's the absolute longest time you've left royal icing (made with meringue powder) hanging around to use (considering that you had a lapse in time from decorating batches of cookies)?  I hope this makes sense; you're info will be helpful.  Thank you!

GENIUS, Tracy!! I tend to never run out of an icing color but I always end up making way more than I need. Thanks for sharing this tip!

I know everyone loves this idea so I know it's good.

I feel foolish, but I'm confused. You pipe enough for one cookie to figure out how much you'll need for X amount that you need to decorate? And, I assume you do that before you color it? I think I'm confused because the star is yellow so if you had already colored your icing, you would still need to make more, correct? 

I'm sorry for being so naive on this. :-( Can someone explain?

You raise a good point, RI Diaries. I probably would pipe out uncolored icing, weigh it, and then compute how much is needed in total before I would color any icing. I'm thinking Tracy maybe just showed a finished colored star for the purposes of the photo (it's showier/prettier than white), but maybe she can clarify.

For my book, where I needed to specify rough quantities of icing needed for each project, I also weighed. I'd make a bunch of icing to start and weigh the full amount. Then weigh it again after various stages of the project to know how much icing was depleted in each step. Nothing beats a scale to avoid loss.

Great idea!

Hi mtkw! You are most certainly welcome!  If we can each save each other some time here and there or help one another with a technique, it is all the better.  I do apologize as I did not see notification of comments, just 'likes' so I just now saw this question.  I actually do not like to hold on to my RI for long.  If I have some extra, I may incorporate it into the a batch that next week, but not much beyond that. I have heard that it can last for some time, but with customers and being a stickler for taste, I will mix a large batch and use it for orders that week.  Sometimes I will carry a color over to the next week, but in general, I mix it for that specific week.  One hint that I heard is simply to do a sniff test if you have had some for a while. If it is 'off', then don't use it. That simplifies the idea, but I do like to use fresh. I also have heard that it will perform better when fresher. I also do not want any possible degradation in taste.  I have heard of some who freeze it, but I personally have not done that. Not to say that it couldn't or shouldn't be done, it is just something that I have not tried. I always want to know that my results will be as expected with taste, performance and look, so I personally don't chance it. Again, that is just me.

I am happy to help, Mike!  You yourself come up with all sorts of genius ideas. Must be that brilliant engineer mind.  Again, happy to help!

Hi Royal Icing Diaries! I am sorry that I did not see this earlier, but hopefully this will help.  I do weigh out uncolored icing normally. The reason that this is colored is quite simply that I have a hard time mixing colors in the yellow family as they tend to be a bit green for me.  I mixed up my first batch of RI, knowing that I needed more for the 70 or stars that I needed to do, but got excited about a color combination for gold that SugarBelle suggested and just started playing with it. Before mixing and coloring more, I needed to backtrack a tad and calculate how much I would need in total.  I used my batch of test color to weigh out one star.  Once I had the amount calculated, I mixed more, portioned the total amount out and did the coloring for the full batch.  So the reason that it is already gold is just that I got excited to try Callye's color combination suggestion before I had my final amount, but I do usually measure it uncolored. I hope that helps!

Thanks, Allison!  I hope that it helps!

Exactly, Julia!  It really does help to avoid loss.

Ok, now I understand. Thank you so much for the explanation. Now it makes complete sense to me and I too think it's a great idea! I love, love my scale and this just gives me another reason to use it. :-)

Perfect!  I think that you will be happy with the idea. I do add a touch extra, just in case.  Have fun with it!

This is the first that I have seen this tip.  Thanks to all.