Hi, I was planning on baking some NFSC this weekend for my boyfriend and his buddies. They are at Motorcycle Mechanics Institute in Orlando going to school, so I thought I would do a motorcycle themed cookie. My question is about tinting the frosting orange and black for the decoration. I'm nervous because I don't know how much food coloring to add for the orange, and I know better than to try and make my own black frosting, but the frosting at the store is really difficult to pipe with. It wasn't very smooth and kept breaking while I was trying to do straight lines.

Does anyone have any advice? Thanks so much!

I'm not sure about the frosting, but you could use candy melts for decorating them. I know you can order orange and black ones from Wilton online. Sorry I couldn't help with the frosting!

For the orange, I would just start adding, mixing, and adding more. Using Wilton colors, it takes quite a bit to get a nice bright orange. Chances are you'll hit a point where it just doesn't seem to get any oranger even when adding more color and it still won't seem bright enough for what you want; however, it'll get brighter/darker when it sits a bit.

To color black, it helps a lot to use cocoa powder to give it some darkness before adding black coloring. Alternatively, you could try mixing whatever extra colored icings you have together to make a muddy color and adding black. Both with reduce the amount of black you need to add.

If the black icing youre referring to is from Wilton, and is in either a tube or squirt can, it can be thinned to make decorating easier. Squirt the icing from the tube or can into a small mixing bowl. Mix in a very small amount of water a little bit at a time until its the desired consistency. If youll be piping lines or writing on the cookies consider mixing in a SMALL amount light corn syrup or clear piping gel this will help with elasticity which makes the icing less prone to breaking. By small amount I mean stirring in ¼ tsp at a time until its the desired consistency. Once your icing is the consistency that youre looking for transfer it to a piping bag fitted with your decorating tip. HTH.