I am making 4 9x13 red velvet cakes to make a jewelry box cake from. The recipe calls for 1 oz. of red food coloring per cake. I have never made red velvet before, but was wondering if I should use the gel coloring that I used for my fondant and icing or a different kind. I think the recipe is anticipating a liquid form, but not sure. Also, if I use gel instead of liquid, will it throw off the balance of the cake.

I've used Wilton gel paste in the past and now use Americolor gel paste in Red Red in my red velvet cake. Using paste instead of liquid did not throw off my recipe, but gel pastes are much stronger than the liquid food dyes, and the Americolor is even stronger than the Wilton, so use less IMO.

I use 1 oz water and dissolve a liitle bit of extra red paste colour in it...works perfectly every time

I love Americolor's Super Red gel paste.  And I was wondering the same thing for an upcoming red velvet birthday cake.  I haven't made it in a while but when I did I used Cook's Country recipe.  They have you blend 1oz of traditional red food dye with the cocoa powder to form a paste.  I'd rather use my Americolor gel so I will try Valkstar's suggestion starting with the water and adding the gel paste.  I'm thinking one teaspoon of gel will be plenty but I will start with 1/2 tsp and go from there.  I don't want to skip the 1oz of liquid required in the recipe because the red cocoa paste would be very dense and difficult to combine into the batter.

Hi everyone, long time lurker and finally joining!

I made my first Red Velvet cupcakes two days ago and used Americolor Super Red gel paste. I baked the recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery, which said it needed two tablespoons red coloring. I didn't realize that Americolor was so strong and put 2 tbsp in.

It was waaaay too much! Hours after eating half a cupcake I brushed my teeth to go to bed and was spitting pink foam, LOL 

So KateCoughlin please let us know how you are doing with 1/2 tsp... sounds like a much better quantity  

I tried that recipe from the Hummingbird Bakery and used 1/2 tsp Sugarflair Red Extra, they came out great. 1/2 tsp for the batch which was 15 or so cupcakes I recall...

Hi All,

I made the Cooks Country red velvet cake recipe this weekend (two layer nine inch cake).  As planned, I started out with 2 tablespoons water and 1/2 teaspoon of Americolor's red gel paste.  It looked okay to me but I added a tiny bit more to be safe - I'd say 3/4 teaspoon in all.  I had already watched the CC video making this cake so I knew how dark the batter should appear - almost raspberry like.  Well, mine turned out a few shades lighters.  It still baked up okay - note pale by any means - but not as shockingly red as I wanted either.  No one noticed but me :)

Still a lesson learned - I should have been more aggressive with the coloring.  I would definitely recommend at least 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons gel paste to 2 tablespoons (1oz) water.  I think it's important to note that I was using the Americolor Super Red variety which always gives me great results - much better than Wilton.  If you are using Wilton I would use more (maybe 2 to 2 1/2 teaspoons).

It is hard to judge the strength of the color by just looking in the bowl.  I would dip the corner of a napkin or paper towel into the finished color to see if its to your liking.

Good luck!

Good to know, thanks Kate! 

AFor Elmo cake frosting which food coloring would you use? After baking and decorating this cake, my grandsons first words were "yuck it taste horrible!"