Hi all, I swore I wouldn't do this, but I have a wedding cake for a friend due tomorrow and am having a heck of a time coming up with the dark brown I want in the royal icing. I'm just super afraid of the piping melting so I would like to use royal icing.

I have used the Wilton brown coloring (gel kind) and it was not getting dark enough. I tried adding some black and it made it look disgusting. I have added cocoa powder and got it as dark as I want but it is a really bad texture and I don't know how it affects the stiffness.

Help? Should I abandon and use buttercream? TIA

How about you sift together cocoa powder and powdered sugar?