Hi Marian
Just reading through this, I thought I would throw in my few cents for what its worth.

I was reading a blog post (and Im rakign my brain to remember who’s it was) about air bubbles but more importantly the collapsing and I found it interesting on her take is the heat vs cool vs moisture in teh drying time as I was in agreeance some cookies dry fast and some slower and I do feel when they dry fast for whatever reason the result does look better. The Cookier had just bought a Heat Gun and she found it solved this issue for her. I agreed also that I find the collapsing happens when you ice ontop of icing, its like the top layer wets the bottom during the drying and causes the collapse. She recommended dry them in a warm dry room and the gun helped.

To solve the dullness look I add corn syrup always to my RI, read that tip over a year ago and it definately makes the dry RI appear more shiney in its finish.

I hope I have helped?? Happy Cookie’ing!

@ marian:
Thank you Marian! I’ve just posted a photo of one of my ‘shrinking’ biscuits on your facebook page.

p.s. @ Taryn: Not on all of those pages (lol), whichever one you choose.

Hi @ Taryn: Thanks for your input!
As for the concave thing, yes, that’s happened to me, and usually what I would suggest is exactly what you said… Add less water to your flood icing as it will then hold its shape easier and not flow over, and you’ll be able to pile more on. Hmmm… How do you check your royal icing consistency? Do you use the 10 second rule?

The other thing I can think of is *how* you’re applying the icing. Sometimes if you go zig zag (i.e. left to right), more icing is applied to the edges and less to the middle, and if you apply the icing in a spiral, the application is more even. Does that make sense?

Also, would you mind sharing a photo with me please? On my facebook page, on twitter, on my Sweetopia Net facebook page… that way other people can respond too.

xo

Hi Marian, I have found that using thicker royal icing (similar to the consistency of toothpaste) to fill small areas seems to stop craters.
I am, however, having trouble with my flooded cookies once they’re dry. I’m finding that the icing seems to shrink. They look lovely and full when the icing is wet, yet once they’re dry they are concave. I have tried adding more icing when flooding them but they tend to overflow, and I have also tried adding less water to my flooding icing. Have you ever experienced this? Thank you!