How to Prevent Color Bleed in Royal Icing
How to prevent color bleed in royal icing is one of my top questions.
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WHAT IS COLOR BLEED AND WHY DOES IT HAPPEN?
For me, color bleed can mean a couple of things. One, when a color bleeds into another color once dry and two, when a color bleeds in itself (see cookie on the right-red icing). This can happen because there's too much moisture in the icing, there's too much food coloring in the icing, the cookies haven't 'rested' for 24 hours after being baked, etc. You may experience other reasons for color bleed but hopefully with a few ideas in your arsenal to avoid, you'll have a good head start!
WHY IS COLOR BLEED AN ISSUE?
Firstly, your customers don't want to look at a defective cookie! If your color bleed is caused by too much food coloring in your icing, that will result in your icing tasting bitter and/or drying crumbly instead of hard like it should.
PREVENTING COLOR BLEED IN ROYAL ICING
Use a high quality food coloring, consistency is key, let your colors develop and let your cookies 'rest' for 24 hours after baking.
Link to Americolor basic set. (This is what I use 98% of the time now, it's definitely my fav).
Link to Chefmaster basic set. (Chefmaster sells a set of 4 with Red, Blue, Yellow & White and with those 4 colors, you can literally make any color you wish)!
Link to Ann Clark beginner set. (This is what I used when I started 10 years ago).
LET YOUR COLORS DEVELOP
When initially coloring your icing, use less rather than more food coloring. And instead let your icing color develop overnight. Notice the photo to the right, the icing bag on top was immediately after I colored it and on the bottom was the next day, mid morning. There's definitely a color difference! If you don't have the luxury of time on your side (as we've all had happen to us) then try to color your icing as far ahead of using as you can. Even an hour is better then immediately to avoid color bleed.
RULE OF THUMB
You want the icing in your bowl to be at least 1 and usually 2 shades lighter than the dried icing color you wish to obtain.
****DARK COLORS BEWARE****
When coloring dark colors, give yourself 24-hours. Colors such as Navy Blue, Burgundy, Red, Black and Dark anything like dark green for example will need 24 hours to develop fully. To read a more detailed explanation about coloring dark icing colors, click here.
COLOR YOUR WHITE ICING
Color bleed tends to happen more often against white icing as seen in the photo to the right. A way to help prevent this is to color your white icing with bright white Americolor food gel. Coloring your white icing is sure to save you time in the long run. Although coloring your white icing helps with color bleed, there are other factors that could also be affecting your icing and causing color bleed.
TEMPERATURE/ENVIRONMENT
When there's a lot of humidity in the air, color bleed can more easily happen. To decrease the humidity, use a dehumidifier and air conditioner.
DRYING IN FRIDGE/FREEZER
Cookies don't dry in the fridge or freezer as they must be exposed to air in order to dry. If put in the fridge/freezer before dry, they can get color bleed. However, once cookies are completely dry and bagged, they can be frozen as long as you defrost them following this method.
NEVER USE AN AIRTIGHT CONTAINER TO DRY YOUR COOKIES
Here's what happened to me one time when I thought my cookies had air-dryed completely (I was also in a hurry to seal them because I was going somewhere for 24+ hours and didn't want to leave them out). So much for trying to save time...I got to remake 2 dozen cookies as there was no going back from this! LEARN from my mistakes.
Royal Icing Consistency
Too thick or too thin?
Royal icing consistency can be challenging even for the most seasoned cookie decorator. A good example of a perfect flood consistency can be seen here on the left. The wet on wet located under 'Happy New Year' had to be just right in order for the white flood to mix well with the black icing that was swirled in. If it was too thick, it wouldn't have mixed evenly and smoothly. And too thin, there'd be a mess running everywhere but the cookie.