I'm using Americolor red to color my wilton premade gumpaste. All the other colors that I make look fine when they are dry except the red. It turns an unattractive kind of brownish red.
Anyone have a remedy for this?? Or answer??

Do you have an airbrush? When I did my poinsettias I ended up airbrushing to get the vibrant red color.

Or red petal dust? You can dust them.

I don't have an airbrush but I have some Wilton red spray color and have used that. It helps but it's still not the pretty red color that I started out with. Also, I am leary (sp) about the petal dust getting on white fondant and making prints. Any other ideas?

From my understanding if you steam the piece it will set the dust and keep it from rubbing off on other things.

Another idea, I want to say I saw it on Food Network years ago, and maybe it was Broween that did it (could be wrong) is to mix red coloring with an alcohol (I'd use everclear) and dip the flowers/petals in it. They used a tall skinny something or other, that way they were able to lift the flower and spin it to get excess off of it before pulling it completely out.

Haven't tried it myself, but if you have extra pieces you could see if it works?

Thanks Texas, those are great suggestion!

You are welcome! Let me know what you and and how it works out.

If you're using Americolor super red, it dries a couple shades darker than you start with. If you mix it with vodka and paint the roses, you'll have the exact same problem. Either make it a little lighter than you want it to be, or paint them with a different red...I use Wilton's red for painting (after throwing out a batch of roses painted with americolor super red that dried looking like old blood) and it dries a little darker, but not as dramatic a difference as the super red.

I made a wedding cake a couple of weeks ago and had the same problem. I wanted the roses to be a deep "realistic" red color... not cherry red. I liked the red color I'd mixed until it dried, then it was an ugly reddish brown color. Yuck!

So after the flowers dried, I dusted them all over with red dust. I absolutely loved the final effect! Dusting the roses gave them a richer dimension of color, not just one solid flat color. They looked more realistic and the final color just popped! I like the final result so much that I'll probably always make my red roses this way.

I also worried about the dust coming off on the cake... so I steamed the roses. The steam set the powder and none of the dust rubbed off on the white fondant. Good Luck. HTH

I had the same issue. I just dusted the whole rose with a red petal dust and got the red I wanted

o.k. I just bought some red petal dust.
All they had was a poppy red. Is that the red that everyone is using?

I'm curious too! What exact color red dust do you all use? I have super red luster dust, but it does not look red to me!

O.K. I am reporting back about my dusting with the red poppy petal dust. Thanks so much for suggesting the petal dust pag41989! I used the red poppy color since that was the only red available in the petal dust colors. It worked beautifully!! My little drab colored red gumpaste rose buds came alive to a beautiful red!! I'm so excited. The red poppy petal dust in the container did not look as beautifully red as it did until after the little rose buds were steamed. Very happy to learn this. Thanks to everyone for your help and suggestions!