Drying Royal Icing

My recent batch of cookies with slow drying royal icing.

I added a base coat of royal icing to a batch of sugar cookies yesterday morning at 10:30 a.m. and now, nearly 24 hours later, it's still not dry.

The time it takes for royal icing to dry is one of those elusive things - you can't rush it so you just have to wait.

Humidity and temperature play a big role and are things we have little or no control over. It's been raining a lot in Portland lately and it's getting cold and I'm cheap and am waiting as long as possible to turn on the heat — so that's what I attribute to my slow going sugar cookies.

From my experience drying time can take anywhere from two hours to nearly two days.

So the moral of the story is to be aware that drying time varies and make your cookies at least two days in advance.