I made a wonderful gum paste last night. This will be my first time working with it. I need to make gum paste high heel shoes, so I want it to be black. I just tried to color the white gum paste black, the same way I would with fondant--just knead it in. It was much more dry than fondant would be, so I added a tad of water and then a little bit of corn syrup, hoping that would help work it in.

It's just not taking the color! It's green and speckled and no matter how much I knead, it won't smooth out or take more color! My hands have taken more color than the GP.

I'm so frustrated--I really need to make these shoes TODAY! Please help!

I know this isn't what you want to hear, but I have never been able to get gum paste to be true black - dark grey is the best I have ever managed.

I did read that by adding dark brown, then black you get a better effect, but have never tried that myself.

Alternatively, make the shoes, then use black edible spray to colour.

HTH - good luck

I don't have any trouble getting it to be black.

I don't think you should have added the corn syrup. If you have some gumpaste you haven't done that to, knead in a little shortening and see if it comes together. Then add the color. I use Americolor Super Black...with the green you're describing, sounds like you've got Wilton black.

Ane thing I've done is create the heel and sole with white gum paste and then paint is with a brush using the airbrush paint. Took a couple of coats with drying in between but it worked well.

I would never add more water and corn syrup...but then I don't make my own gum paste...I buy wilton's pre made stuff.

And I've colored it black before. Use Americolor gel coloring. Gum paste will dry a lot lighter than fondant, so if I need a really dark color, I will take the black gel paste and mix with lemon extract to become easier to spread (and dry faster)...and I will paint over the object with the coloring. Works great.

I used Wiltons regular black to color fondant last night to make zebra stripes on pink, (just posted in my pics). I used some of the hot pink fondant and just kept adding black color. It did turn black but also turned very crumbly and even though I did add crisco to my hands but it was breaking as I cut the stripes, gave me a hard time!

I think I will just buy the black fondant next time.

This isn't fondant. I have no trouble coloring fondant! This is gum paste. For some reason, it's not as easily colored. Maybe I'll buy black gum paste for this purpose next time I tried to make shoes with fondant and it wasn't firm enough and broke.

The decorations on my shoe cake are gumpaste and black. I used Lucks liqua-gel colors.

Have you tried to add some cocoa powder to help darken the gumpaste and then add black?

ReneeFLL: I tried adding cocoa to fondant several times and found that it fell apart too easily (not dry, just not elastic enough to take much abuse), so I'd be afraid to add it to this!

Cakeuhlicious: how do you add it? I'm using Americolor black (gel). I made the GP last night and it rested 24 hours. Do you knead it in with anything to keep the GP from drying as you knead it?

What type of gumpaste are you using? I tried coloring Cricut gumpaste black and it turned green, but Wilton gumpaste usually works fine. I use Wilton black food coloring (a lot of it), and a lot of crisco.

Whenever I color gumpaste (only used wiltons premade) I always lather my hands with vegetable shortening. Any time it would start sticking I would lather up again. Also, I don't knead it, so to speak, when I'm mixing the color..I roll it in between my hands until it's really long and then roll it up into a ball and do it over and over. I do this because I haven't quite worked up the strength in my fingers or wrists yet to knead it like you're supposed to lol

Also, every tutorial I've read/watched, they start by kneading in veggie shortening to get it to a workable substance first. Then lather their hands, add the color, and starting working it in. HTH

Ah. I thought adding shortening would alter the drying characteristics of the GP.