hi everyone!

i am wondering what the best way to color both gumpaste and fondant are. i am talking about the pre-made stuff - so not ready to delve into making my own.

also not ready to invest in every single color of already colored fondant out there either.........ACK!

Buy a few of the basic colors and then mix the colors to make the color you want. Here is a color mixing chart.

http://www.sugarcraft.com/catalog/coloring/colormixingchart.htm

i know all about colors and making them - i do it all the time for royal icing. i just bought the wilton basic book and it says to color gumpaste by using a bit of pre-colored fondant. previously i used americolor gels - am i not supposed to do that? does it make the gumpaste harder to work with? what about fondant - i tried it with fondant and got fondant that was incredibly sticky...just wondering if i REALLY need to buy all of that pre-colored fondant...

I color my own with the americolor gels. I don't have any problem working with the gumpaste or fondant after I dye it.

You can use the gel to color your gumpaste or fondant. (I only buy red or black fondant.)
Just knead the color in. I usually wear gloves to save my hands but when I don't I just cover my hands with a bit of shortening and knead away.

Gloves are important or else your hands will have dye all over them for a few days!

I use americolor and wilton both to color them - no problems. The gloves are a must - if you just use the shortning on your hands, make sure you get it all around your fingernails - the color will stick there (yeah, I had blue ones here this week, looks gross)

I make my own fondant and sometimes when it's too sticky I put a little extra powder sugar in it and that seems to help. Also pezadoodle making your own from scratch is sooo easy. If you have a mixer (kitchen aid, kenmore) you can make it. I just use one and half bags of mini mm, 2 tablespoons of water and melt in microwave. Then I just use 1 bag of pwdered sugar in mixer with melted mm's. At that time I add any color or flavoring I want. Also I just want to let you know if you don't have a mixer like I didn't when I first started it can be made with a hand held mixer. I made a couple that way. Not sure how long hand mixer would last though and it requires some elbow grease. I did end up buying kenmore just because. I use T's MM fondant found on CC. If you would like more details I'd be glad to help.

hhhhhmmmm i had not even thought about trying the MM fondant cuz i thought it would be too hard....sounds easy enough though. i do have a kitchenaid - i am not new to baking just new to decorating cakes so the kitchenaid was a must! perhaps we will try it on our cake this weekend - does it taste alot better? hubby and son won't eat a fondant covered cake but they look SO GOOD!

Homemade MMF taste so much better than the store bought. When you make your own you can add any type of flavoring you'd like. I love to add almond and vanilla together to mine. I have also made some using chocolate, butter and even a strawberry flavoring. You don't have to add flavoring, the MM's and pwd sugar are sweet as is. I do need to let you know you put your flavoring in when you melt the MM's and 2 tablespoons of water. I add to this a tablespoon of flavoring. So if I use almond and vanilla as flavoring I add tablespoon of each. When you put the melted MM's in the mixer with the pwd. sugar you can add any color and then just mix till well blended. Just be sure to grease the mixing bowl with shortning. Wish you luck with making MMF. It's so much cheaper and taste so much better. Don't give up if your fist try dosn't turn out the way you'd like. It takes practice but I'm sure you can master it