Ok so I dont know what it is but no matter how hard I try I never have good luck with black whether it be fondant or buttercream.

When I get the buttercream to the right color it just bleeds into everything, I have tried adding meringue powder to give it more stability but it doesnt seem to help.

Then with fondant (when people dont want chocolate fondant) how on earth do you get white fondant so it isnt just dark grey?

Any tips would be appreciated - thx

I have used Indydebi's and sugarshack's icings and used half butter and half shornting and not had any issues with black. I use Americolor super black. It does take a bit to get a rich black but less then Wilton. There are other gels that work well also.

Fondand: Do yourself a favor and buy Satin Ice black-vanilla fondant. It saves you so much time and aggravation.

buttercream: Mix together all those small amounts of various colors that you have leftover. It will make an ugly camo green color. Then you don't have to add as much black to get black icing.

Buttercream: You can also use canned dark chocolate fudge icing and add black to it. When used alone, it can look like black w/o having to add any black color.

I use chefmaster and it doesn't take a lot to get a true black (or red) and yu don't have to wait for it to intensify. IMO it's better then Wilton or Americolor.

I just did one for a shower this weekend, you can see it in my photos. What I did, was use...shudder...canned choclate frosting for the stenciling. It took barely any americolor black to get it totally black. I used Indydebi's buttercream for the white buttercream because it is short only and crusts really well. Normally I use a half butter half shprtening recipe, but I go with debi's when I am worried about bleeding or I am worried about weather, because that recipe is so stable.

Needless to say the black stenciling on this cake was perfect, not even a smidge of bleeding.