How Long to Store Fresh Icing

I make my RI using meringue powder and it stays good in the fridge for weeks at a time - the longest I have had it in there is 3 I think and it tasted and performed as good as ever.  There is really nothing in there that will go bad since it is sugar, meringue powder, water, and flavoring.  I see no reason to throw it away!  I have read of people putting it in the freezer, too.

I use pasteurized egg whites and I keep it on the counter for a day or 2. If I need to store it longer than that I put it in the fridge or freezer. Between the pasteurization and the sugar it doesn't go bad. 

I try really hard to make only what I need, I really don't want to have leftovers. I find that the hardest part of decorating.

I make royal icing with fresh egg whites and icing sugar and nothing else. I started off keeping it in the fridge, but ran out of space so keep it now on the counter. At times, I have kept it for several weeks (for those cookies I think I will get to the next evening, or the next, or the next ...) and the only thing that has happened is that the icing separated and in the end starts crystallizing. We have made biscuits with it and no one has gotten sick so far. Admittedly, those were "play cookies" for my daughter to decorate, but they did get eaten. When I make biscuits for other people I do use fresh RI because I  don't want to take any risk.

Also with with keeping iced cookies (sealed) for weeks after I have no problem as I have sent them to Belgium and they got stuck in the post, but when they arrived they were still fine. 

And now I will cross my fingers that nothing happens with the next set of cookies!

I agree with Robin H that it is hard to figure out how much icing will be needed.

It has been interesting to watch what people say.  I use meringue powder and I feel the icing works the best the first day.  I will freeze icing and defrosted icing works better for flooding, but for me is a disaster for fine work.  But after watching and thinking about the posts I keep asking myself why am I keeping small amounts of icing.  the cost of the small amounts of icing is pennies.  This leads me back to something said at Cookiecon, that you shouldn't cut corners in decorating.  I know that when I cut corners is when something goes wrong and I don't get my best results and I'm disappointed in the final cookie.  So why save pennies of icing that my mess up my result.

Thanks for all your replies! I start to get the feeling that there is no absolute truth about icing *lol*

The comments here pretty much reflect what I have read elsewhere, the storage time seems to depend on intuition

Though I also find that for fine detailed work, for piping letters, etc., fresh icing works best. For flooding I can see no difference, only exception is when I use edible markers afterwards - the become kind of translucent when applied to older icing.

For the best before issue I'll take your word Liesbet, that even when fresh egg whites are used it keeps for almost ever. Which should be even more true when made with powdered or meringue powder.

laegwen    i think many use it until its gone       

i do     but sometimes i'll just toss it because of age    not that it isn't usable

i may be wrong but many rework the icing to restore it   

i thought about your post and kept going back to rework restore it    

my icing is over a week old         since no one is eating it it doesn't matter if its old   to me    lol             i rework rebeat   restore it       if i don't do that i just use it for flood     but not without stirring it in its container

i rebeat my week old icing     got it to consistency and was able to  pipe   words  lines   anything and everything

also    any icing    will separate    all it needs is reworked    (hopefully i'm not wrong)           btw  i've used fresh whites   and    pasteurized   whites       if i give away cookies   and using whites   i'll use pasteurized  

i mainly use  meringue powder though