Hey Guys,

Well, I needed to make some true red buttercream icing. I made it yesterday afternoon, hoping it would redden up. I used a whole jar of no taste red (the big jar), several dollops of Americolor Super Red, some fuchsia, and today, I added some Americolor Red Red. It's only a little darker than tomato soup red. Grrr. I don't need a whole lot, but I would rather use my own buttercream than the wilton tubes, although I bought those just in case.

So I have two questions:

How can I get it redder?

It's thinned a lot since I've added so much color...can I stiffen it some with a little powdered sugar or will that decrease the red color?

Ah, mission impossible!

Thanks

Kristi

if you need to stiffen it definitely add more powdered sugar it will be fine......you can also try adding just a touch like one little drop of americolor black to it and that helps to deepen and darken the red. I just made some red the other day with americolor red and squirted it in there and it got super dark! I mean it's like a deep blood red now (2 days later)

It has thinned because of all the stiring you had to do.
Yes, it willk darken over time.
I cannot repeat it often enough:

Dark &/or intense color like red, navy blue, brown, blk all need to be made days ahead so the color has time to develop.
Also it's best to start w/a base color instead of white. Like for red use a base of pink, orange or yellow. For brown & black the best thing is to flavor it w/unsweetened chocolate before adding blk or brn paste/gel.
Also for black save all your dibs and dabs of colored icing no matter the color in one container; store in fzr as you add to it until you need blk. Now mix up well - it will be an ugly color but never fear just add your blk gel and it will almost instantly turn blk Even if it is 'just' charcole gray once you pipe w/it it will look black I promise

Powdered color can also be quite helpful.

I couldn't agree more w/ kakeladi! I think everytime someone has a dark color issue, I am on a crusade to post something in response.

For black, just get it to dark charcoal. Sometimes after just a couple hours you'll see it go black. For red, get it a dark pink - same thing with any color. I did a Dallas Cowboys jersey and needed navy - iced it while it was kind of just blue, and look http://www.cakecentral.com/modules.php?name=gallery&file=displayimage&pid=1292815&done=1

It saves you money too, because you're not using near the amount of color. And it doesn't thin out the icing so much either!

Hope this helps,

Amen to the powdered color comment from leahs as well. Great stuff, and fairly inexpensive.

Chefmaster liqua gel colors instantly ..........no waiting, no bitter taste and it takes very little. The colors are concentrated and very vibrant.

Thank you all!!!

I am going to try the Chefmaster colors. Where on earth do you buy powdered color?

Also, my red is red now. But my green is ARMY GREEN! Ah well, I have a tube of kelly green wilton I can use for the trim work.

My red was red! Christmas red! I put it on the cake, and it turned DARK RED after 2 hours but it's still Christmas RED in my bowl, with the lid....

What happened???