First, is there any secret to getting "black" icing.. My "black always seems kindof grey?! Any help greatly appreciated!

Second, when should you use a more dense cake mix? What are dense cake mixes that taste good? And do you just use the dense mix or do you mix pound cake (for example) with a "normal" cake mix? Thank you!!

You get black icing darker by starting with chocolate icing.

A dense cake is good to use when you are covering with fondant or making tiers. Check out the Cake Mix Doctor books. Good doctored recipes there. She has a web site too, link below. Some people use 1 box regular cake mix and 1 box pound cake mix (using the ingredients posted for each mix).

www.cakemixdoctor.com

Chocolate icing not only helps use less black but it also hides any taste from using so much food coloring.

When you are making 3d cakes you can't use white cake mix or other lighter cakes. I use BC yellow and chocolate fudge for all my 3d cakes, it holds up well, I just follow the directions on back.

Using chocolate icing makes sense - Thanks!! What about MMF - my MMF still looks grey?!

I've put cocoa powder when I make MMF if I want black, it doesn't take too long then to make it black.

For getting your icing really black...yes u can start with chocolate icing..but i find that you have to use way too much color which to me still gives it a funny taste.....so...i would recommend trying americolor superblack...(i am not a salesperson...)lol...just was frustrated with trying to get a true black color....