Okay, I have never seen anything like this!

I just made a batch of icing with 50% shortening and 50% Fleishman's margarine. I added some 'whitener' to help make it , well, whiter, as well as some lemon juice to cut down on the sweetness....the same things I always add to my icing EXCEPT that I usually use butter. This is a dairy free icing, hence the Fleishman's.

I decided I wanted purple so I took some out of the batch to colour. I added a good dollop of Wilton purple and mixed it in and got a lovely shade of...baby blue! Huh? So I added more purple....got more blue. Pulled out the big guns, my Americolor purple, added a good squeeze, mixed 'er up and got ....yep, blue! I have tried adding pink, fuschia, more purple, even red and it still goes back to blue!!! This is too weird!

It's kinda funny, but not really. It is now 11:20 PM and I am just starting to ice this cake. Man oh man, it's a good thing I'm doing a what cat on top of this thing, I'd hate to see what other colour I come up with next!

Maybe letting it sit will darken it to purple? I have never used Fleishmans so I cant help you there, but I will bump you up at least.

It may be a combination of things...both the use of the margarine (which is unavoidable in this case) and the whitener that you added before adding the purple coloring. I'm just guessing here, but if you added the white icing coloring first, then it may never completely turn a purple color. I used margarine in my icing once and it affected the way it took color, maybe that's happening here as well? I wonder if you could make a whole new batch of icing and not add the whitner to it, then add in some of the blueish color you have and then more purple coloring??? Do you have enough time & ingredients to do that?

The whitener made the icing change colors. At least I think it does. I added whitener to the bucket icing and when I mixed the red in I had the same problem. I used over half of the jar and my icing was not a true red. I even let it set for awhile after I mixed it and it didn't get any darker like it normaly does. This is my experience with the whitener.

I walked back into the kitchen to smooth the cake and it's a bright blue now.

It must be the margarine that is making this happen. I just smoothed it with some Viva and when I took the paper towel away it was stained...purple pink!?!

Curiouser and curiouser.....

OH! I didn't realize you were already using it to ice the cake with...lol. This is gonna be interesting... Please do take a picture and show us just what color you end up with by morning! I've had a few crazy things like this happen with colors...they usually ended up ok, though. Not what I initially wanted, but acceptable...lol. Good luck!

I've had this problem for years. In my very first Wilton class, the instructor addressed this issue when I tried using the violet color. It is the water content in the icing that causes the change. For example, take a damp paper towel and put a little violet color on it. You will see that the water causes the color to separate into its original parts, mainly blue. The only way I can achieve a true purple color is to add milk to my icing and use straight crisco. Unfortunately this won't work for you since you need a dairy free frosting. I was hoping that Americolor would not have this problem, but it does. It sure would be nice to have a violet color that worked properly.

I do not think it is the whitener. I use the wilton white paste and have never had a problem with purple. I am guessing the issue may be the margarine...but who knows...it may turn purple by morning!!! Good luck and I hope you will post a pic!

Thanks everyone! Oh, it's blue baby, bright blue! It actually looks okay just not what I was after.

I have done purple before I just have not had this happen. I was laughing as I was trying to colour it because the colour would go in and then before my unbelieving eyes it would just turn blue.

It really must be the margarine, it's the only factor that is different in this case.

Now, if only I could make my Persian kitty look like a Persian kitty and not a Maltese, that would be good too!

Really? Any idea as to why? I use lemon juice almost all the time and would never have suspected it.

Doah!!! Now it's making sense!!!

As I said I have used lemon juice before and indeed when I have used brown it did go greenish. I thought it was just Wilton as the Americolor didn't do that.

Thank you Princess!

I'm curious if it worked without the lemon juice? I've never used lemon juice, and my purple does this very same thing every time unless I use milk in the icing.

lemon juice and butter or margarine will not work with purple. it has too much of the color yellow...and purple and yellow do not mix

Hi. I'm the one who suggested the Fleishmans margarine so I can tell you from experience that it's not the margarine causing your color to be wierd. I use the margarine/crisco combination all the time.

It has to be either the whitener or the lemon juice, I have never used either in my icing.

I actually made a Barney cake last year with that margarine/crisco icing and believe me he was purple!

At this point I think CakePrincess hit the nail on the head, it's gotta be the lemon juice. I have used both margarine and butter before without any adverse affects on my colour, yellow or no yellow, it has worked. I also usually use milk or even heavy cream to make it smooth, once again with no adverse affects.

In my batch last nite I used a fair amount of lemon juice to try to really cut the sweetness, more than I normally use. Each time I added the colour it was as if it was being 'eaten up' by the icing leaving a lovely shade of blue behind. I will be making another batch up tonight and I will leave out the lemon juice. I will need purple for this cake as well so we shall see how this one turns out!

LOL...Lazy Susan! That was such a funny scene! I can just imagine poor Tripletmom saying that sort of thing while she was struggling with this purple...lol. I've been there a few times myself..

Glad that Cake Princess figured this one out! I noticed the mention of the lemon juice, but didn't think anything of it. After princess's explanation, though, it does make perfect sense to me...the acidity reacting with the dyes, etc. I've never had this exact problem before, so could only offer guesses. Great to have a place where there's usually someone who knows the answer to our problems! lol

Truth be told I was laughing because I just could not believe what I was seeing, kinda cool actually. I ran downstairs to show my hubby however he was too busy snoring so I had no one to share this with except you folks!

The downside is because I was trying so hard to get it purple I used a lot of colour and now there is that slight bitter taste that Wilton seems to give. Oh well, she said she didn't want it sweet, I am to please!

I had the same problem with sky blue..it came out green..and I figured out it was because of the margarine AND I also use butterflavor crisco because it makes the frosting taste soooo good without having to use the butter flavoring..anyway, it make the frosting an off white which makes blue come out green (all the yellow from the margarine and the bf crisco)..on another note, I tried the all shortening recipe for stiffer bc for my roses yesterday and tried to make light violet and it came out like a greyish violet (no water just milk added and i didn't use whitener)..it dried purple though so THANK GOODNESS..when I used violet in my regular icing recipe with the margarine and the crisco it came out super purple, but i had to add a little bit of blue and tiny bit of red.

P.S. How come the whitener doesn't whiten my icing..i dumped a bunch in the other day and it didn't lighten it at all? Though maybe someone could answer that for me..maybe .

Your cake sounds like it will be fine, and you know you have to post a pic..I can't wait to see it with the little kitty on it .

Well, here she is! All in all it worked out well, the little girl was soooo happy with it. I warned them about the possibility of the icing being a little bitter and they were not concerned at all. As you can see the 'purple' of the cushion matches the blue M&M's I used for the eyes! They said they didn't want to cut it!

On a side note, they had to put down one of the family cats yesterday, one that the mom had even before she was married and had her kids. Her little girl said it looked just like their cat....(here is me gulping at this point!)...even though theirs was a tabby. How sweet was that?

Thanks again for everyone's help...lesson learned? Don't use lemon juice unless you want to encounter your own version of "The Disappearing Colour!!

Tripletmom:
You're welcome. I LOVE the cake. It's gorgeous!!!

The water in some areas will cause this too. Mineral content, ionic content etc can affect the pH of water.

triplet mom, your cake looks GREAT! It looks just the cat you were going for, and you thought it was going to look like a maltese..trust me, I have a maltese, and your cat looks nothing like him. You did an awesome job. Even though it turned out blue, it still looks great! I give it 100 thumbs up

P.S. I looked at your website, and your cakes are gorgeous.!

Your cake came out great, beautiful! glad everything turned out well.

This is so funny. I just posted on a similar thread earlier this evening. You won't believe this, but I made a cake on Friday using IMBC. I just wanted a little bit of blue to use for a border. I used the Wilton Cornflower blue and it came out purple! I used it anyway since it was just a cake I was playing around with. I posted it in my pictures. The border is definitely a pretty shade of purple!

I always start with pink frosting....and add from there, I do that when I want red too.......

That's a gorgeous cake!