this has never happened to me before not sure why it happened.
i was decorating cookies- with violet RI.
when i woke up in the morning, the RI had turned BLUE!!!
try to pass of a blue, barney the dinosaur!!!! LOL.
has this ever happend to anyone? or do you know why this would have happened.
they tasted fine, just the color had changed.
i make my RI with; powder sugar, water, cream of tartar, vanilla and wilton coloring. its the same way i always make it.
thanks!

oops i forgot to add,
the other colors on 'barney' stayed the same, the green, white, black and yellow. just the violet turned blue.
thanks..........again!

I had the same thing happen to me with fondant. I was making lavender roses, and the fondant turned blue. It has to do with light, the only thing you can do is keep it covered.

Aundrea, I've never tried cream of tartar in my RI, I always use merangue powder.
Does the cream of tartar work the same way, and if so how much do you use?
Also, does the constinancy come out the same?
Thanks!!

This has to do with the purple coloring. Florescent or sunlight will change it super fast. Sucks, but not alot you can do. I've heard with buttercream you can use milk in place of water and keep it covered from light to help.

You could also try mixing red and blue to make the purple.

Yep - it's the purple. Any color with red in it will do this! Red, pink, fuschia, purple...Purple seems the biggest offender.

This is the 2nd-in-2-days thread where my thought was "i saw your subject line and knew you were dealing with red or purple".

When they took #2 Red Dye off the market 20+ years ago, cake decorators have been dealing with this problem. All remaining reds are not as stable.

Purple = red + blue. When the red fades, all you have left is the blue.

Bright light, direct sunlight and (some?) florescents (sp?) are the culprits. The first time this happened to me,I was transporting a cake covered in various colored roses (rainbow wedding). By the time I got there, I had a lot of 2-toned roses. Everyone thought I was a genius for making them that way .... so I didnt' confess it was a problem caused by the sun beating thru my vehicle windows!!

thanks for the tips!
im not sure what the solution is but i guess ill keep trying different things.
chinadoll: i use cream of tartar just a pinch and its ok, i also add a little bit of pipping gel too to make my RI flow better and it doesnt harden in the bag.
indydebi: im using your receipe for your icing - wedding crisco buttercream- i love it! thanks for posting. im making my mothers anniversary cake tonight- i know she will enjoy it too.
i WAS going to add some purple roses but decided to go pink. haha.
its too late to mess around with the color problem.
purple is her favorite color, but pink will have to do.
thanks again, everyone.