How do you get icing RED & not PINK? Could someone give me ideas? I have been using deep red icing gel dye.

What brand are you using? Wilton isn't as good as other brands.
You have to use lots of red to get a true red, just watch because it doesn't taste good with that much food coloring. To mask the taste I add cocoa powder (just a little) or mint flavoring unless I'm making a cake that won't go with those flavors.

Yep, go with Americolor - true red. It takes a lot less and doesn't taste as bad.

I usually use the Christmas Red mixed with No taste Red, but it still doesn't turn to the shade I want and you have to add almost the whole bottle. Other suggestions are starting with a pink then add the other reds. I just recently tried the Americolor and that stuff works awesome. I won't be using the Wilton colors any more. Hope this helps

Lil

I use the wilton brand(red-red) and sometimes a little dry powder coloring and let it set for 10 or so minutes and it seems to darken, if still not red enough, i add more coloring. I think i will be switching to the americolor when the wilton stuff is gone.

If all you have is wiltons.

Start with No taste red. add almost the whole bottle and let it sit for 24-48 hours. Then add the red colouring, let sit 24 hours.

It will turn red.

I'm taking cake decorating classes & although I've not tried this yet, my instructor said that to get a true red it takes 1 oz. of red coloring (she recommended Wilton red paste w/no taste) per cup of buttercream icing. Hope this works for you!

Has anyone tried using cool-aid for coloring. I've heard it works great and tastes good too, but I'm not sure how good it can be to get the real dark colors, like dark red.......

Thank you!!! So many great options

AMERICOLOR.....I put a whole jar of wilton's no taste red-red and still had dark pink, same with black, all I could get was grey. I spent like an hr. trying to get red and black. I came on here to see what I might be doing wrong and read about americolor. The next day I bought it a few drops later and I had a really nice red and black. AMERICOLOR.

Am I the only one who hasn't had luck with the Americolor red?? I don't have the true red, because they were out at the time I ordered, but I have Christmas red and holiday red, and I can't seem to get a deep red out of it?!?

using a little brown helps also. I used it for the Lightning McQeen cake

I gave up on making red icing. I found it much easier to buy it from the local cake supply store.