I am going to be using meringue instead of royal icing for decoration on a cake. Does anyone know if I can color it with my reguar gel color, or do I need candy color? Also, how dark can I get it? I'm only familiar with the meringue cookies (store bought) we had at the Holidays growing up, and I seem to remember they were always white or pastel. I want to get a dark purple / eggplant color.

Any ideas, comments, suggestions are welcome!

I haven't had much luck getting past pastels with tiny amounts of gels. (We do have a supplier offering us macaron powder mix in crazy shades of purples, navy blues, etc but we try not to go that bold and "unnatural" at the bakery I work at.)

Though not the dark purple/eggplant colour you mentioned, I did Google these purple beauties done without having to purchase any special powders...

http://deliciousdeliciousdelicious.blogspot.com/2010/05/creme-de-violet-macarons.html

and a great article on getting vivid colours....

http://onevanillabean.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/easter-or-engagement-macarons-achieving-the-right-color/