How-to Dry Royal Icing in The Oven
Learn how to dry royal icing in the oven with all my tips! Your cookie decorations will be shiny, stable, and save you lots of drying time!
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What Is The Oven Drying Method?
A technique to speed up the drying time of royal icing.
After you decorate your cookies with royal icing, you put them on a baking tray.
Set your oven to the lowest temperature and then dry the cookies in short amounts of time until they don’t look wet.
What Is Royal Icing?
Royal icing is sweet and dries hard. The sweetness comes powdered sugar (confections sugar) while the egg white component helps icing dry.
My favorite way to make royal icing is simple – a two ingredient royal icing recipe using powdered sugar and egg whites (pasteurized egg whites from a box). Egg whites taste better (in my opinion) and no extracts are needed when you pair it with my buttery sugar cookie recipe.
How Long Does Royal Icing Normally Take To Dry?
Royal icing can be deceiving. It might look dry after 15 minutes, but if you were to cut the cookie in half, you’d find the icing inside is still wet.
Royal icing forms a very thin crust after a short period of time.
It actually takes about 10-12 hours for royal icing to dry completely.
It’s important to know the reasons why drying times vary.
- Humidity in your kitchen
- The consistency of your icing
- If it’s raining (humidity)
- The season! Here in the Midwest, I love decorating in the winter because cookies dry quicker 😀
Your best tip is to decorate sugar cookies with royal icing 24 hours in advance so you don’t have to worry.
Benefits Of Drying Sugar Cookies In The Oven
If letting cookies with royal icing dry overnight works great, why use the oven drying method?
- Sometimes, the longer it takes to dry royal icing, the more dull it becomes. The oven speeds up the process = shinier icing
- Saves you drying time
- Great if you’re in a rush
- Creates a smooth and glossy surface
- Keeps royal icing “puffy”
- Drying the base layer helps prevent the bleeding of colors
How To Dry Royal Icing Cookies In The Oven
Different sized cookies need different drying times. It’s better to start with less time and add more as needed.
- Mini cookies (2-inch and less) about 5-10 minutes
- Medium cookies (3-5-inch) 8-12 minutes
- Larger cookies (5-inch and up) 10-15 minutes
Actual times will depend on your kitchen conditions such as humidity, icing consistency, and your ovens lowest temperature setting.
Be careful if your oven has hotspots and try to avoid them.
Directions
- Adjust the rack to the middle of the oven
- Preheat the oven to the lowest possible temperature (my oven goes to 170°F)
- Place the iced cookies on a baking tray (keep the same sized cookies together)
- Place the tray on the middle rack and leave the oven door open all the way or just a crack
- Dry cookies for the appropriate time
- As soon as the cookies are dry to the touch, take them out
- Let cookies sit for a few minutes to cool down
- Pipe additional details
- Let the cookies air dry completely
Oven Drying Mistakes
It’s a good idea to set a timer for drying royal icing because it’s easy to forget they’re in there!
Cookies left too long in the oven can crack, over expand, speckle, look discolored, get butter bleeding, egg white separation, and brown.
FAQs
Do Royal Icing Cookies Dry Completely In The Oven?
Not exactly. The oven drying method speeds up the entire drying process, but you don’t want to leave the cookies in there for long periods of time (see why not in the section above). I recommend just drying the base layer of icing and letting additional details air dry.
Drying The Base Layer Icing
The base layer is the first layer of icing, or flood icing, that you use to decorate your cookies. In the image above, I outlined the cookie on the left, and then flooded it on the right.
The base layer usually covers the majority of the cookie, which means it takes more drying time. Usually I just dry the base layer in the oven.
Drying small details or stiff consistency icing is trickier because they dry faster.
Decorate Cookies On The Baking Tray
Move cooled and undecorated cookies onto a baking tray. Decorate the cookies right on the tray. Moving cookies around onto different surfaces can cause rippling. This way, you can place the tray right in the oven.
Do I Leave The Oven Door Open?
Sure! If this is the first time drying in the oven or worried about the oven being too hot, leave the door wide open. You can also leave it cracked open. You can keep the oven door closed too, just don’t forget they’re in there!
Meringue Powder or Egg Whites?
I tested the oven drying method using both fresh egg whites and meringue powder. I got the same drying results using the same times.
Gas vs. Electric Oven
Either oven type works, just remember to keep it on the lowest temperature. It’s also helpful to know your ovens “hot spots” which are the areas that tend to brown your cookies faster. Try to avoid putting the baking sheet here if possible!
Convection Setting
It might seem like a convection setting makes sense in order to speed up the drying times, but it can be harder to control.
The idea to drying royal icing is to use low and slow heat from the oven but not too much heat that it melts the icing and the butter in the cookie.
My ovens lowest temperature is 150°F and the fan is about 25° hotter. It doesn’t make sense to turn up the heat. The idea that this is a “shortcut” isn’t worth the risk!
If you decide to try this setting, I suggest keeping the oven door cracked open and cut the drying time in half.
Using A Dehydrator
One great thing about using a dehydrator are the lower temperatures. The dehydrator is a bit more forgiving because of the low temperatures. If you forget the cookies are in there, they’ll most likely be okay!
Set your dehydrator to a low temperature, 95-105°F. Different sized cookies need their own drying time just like in the oven. Use the times listed above for the oven and add more minutes as needed.
Once cookies are dried and ready to be packaged, check out my post about the best ways to package cookies with links to all the bakery boxes I use!
