I am sure that this has been asked here before but I am new to the forums. I wanted to make some red icing this morning to help decorate Jesus's Birthday with my daughter. I could not get red. Very very pink, no red. How in the world do I get the color i need?

Heather

Well, don't know if this is going to help you now but Americolor is the best IMO. You will still need to add a lot of red to get a good deep red though. If you use Wilton colors, make sure and use the no taste red!

It takes a LOT of red to get red icing. Plus after it sits for a little bit it will darken a little more. I don't know how much red icing you need but if you haven't used almost the entire container of red paste you need to use more, LOL.

Americolor is the best for making red I agree. : )

I have a spiderman colored icing set that I usually mix with my red. It is a deeper red. It does take a lot of red. if you can get it really pink, with time it may turn into red, as stated previously, it darkens with time. I have a habit of trying to get mine to the colors that I want in the beginnig, and in the end they are very vibrant to say the least!

I have the best luck with starting out making a pink icing using pink color then adding the red. I did a ladybug for a meeting with cake instructors and it was noted how "red" the icing was.

I've had good luck using the powdered color by CK Products, then finish up with the red gel. Powdered also seems to not leave a taste.

I color mine pink, then color it red, with Wilton's red-red. The Christmas red is not as dark..FYI.

I've heard about Americolor..and have always heard that the "Super Red" is really red!

HTH!

Robyn

Hi:

What I do to get the red is to use instead to gel colors (as Amricolor or Wilton) I use the powdered, when get dries its really red,red,red. Try it

When I need to make a nice deep red I start off with a small amount of icing and I load a lot of Wilton's "No Taste Red" in to it. I mix it thoroughly and right away I am starting off with a really deep color. Now, the trick is to maintain that deep color while adding more white icing to it. So I add another small amount to the batch I already have colored and add some more red coloring and mix it. I continue doing this until the entire batch of icing is all one nice deep color. Then I let my icing sit for a while to deepen on it's own. When I think it has deepen to as deep as it will get I check it and add more red food coloring to it. I usually use a combination of No taste red and red-red.


I know this may seem like a lot of work but it's much better than getting frustrated trying to get a deep red in one shot. I don't bother wasting pink gel/paste colors to start off because adding a little bit of red to the white icing will tint the icing pink anyway.

I made royal icing pointsettias for a wedding cake for Christmas Eve. It took 1 and a half tall containers of gel red food coloring to get a nice red color, and I have to tell you it still looked more on the pink side until it sat for a few hours and then it looked red.