Ok. Are you not suppose to tint candy melts?? I tried. It didnt work.It got all grainy and just plain bad. Husband said it reminded him of cow poop. NICE huh?? lol I know you can buy the ones already pink and purple and so on but i need some lime green and dark dark pink for a baby shower cake this weekend.

ANY ideas or is this just a NO NO

thanks for any tips

You have to use oil-based candy colors specifically formulated for coloring chocolate. Regular icing colors contain water and water causes chocolate to seize. That's what happened to yours.

If you can't get your hands on candy color, you can add some vegetable oil along with the regular colors to help smooth out the seizing.

you need to use an oil-based coloring to tint candy melts or chocolate. water-based gel colors causes it to seize. wilton and americolor both carry candy colorings, but i generally use americolor Flo-Coat (available here at CC) that you can add to water-based gel colors.

There are Candy Colors by Wilton especially for coloring Candy Melts.Gels or other liquid icing colors will make the chocolate or Candy melts seize.

Like chakkakin mentioned, I would also HIGHLY recommend Ameri-color Flo-coat. It is cheap and allows you to use all the normal icing colors that you already have instead of buying the overpriced (and in my opinion, not very effective) oil based colors. I just needed to add a couple drops of the flo-coat along with the icing color and it worked wonderfully.

I've used shortening with the paste colors and it works well. Shortening will also fix your candy if you get water in it for any other reason.

Hobby lobby has another brand of candy colors and a large selection of stuff for candy making. I like their colors better than Wilton.

You might want to check out this other post from a few weeks ago. It's about Paramount crystals to help with Chocolate wafers.

http://www.cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-206331-.html

I personally purchase my wafers locally from Sweet Celebrations and they taste Way better than Wilton's, the first/last time I purchased the wiltons, I tried them, then I used them for a sculture I knew no one was going to eat.

There are a lot of places online where you can purchase candy wafers and they are a lot better. They range from $3.00 to $5.00 per lb usually or you can go to the real chocolate from $5.00 to $12.00 per lb. You could pay a lot more too, but 5-12 is a good range.

If you can find a place that will send you a small assortment of the chocolates they offer, that is the best, then you can make a real informed decision.
I cannot remember the links, I will try and find them and repost.

Good Luck

I use the candy melts sold by Hobby Lobby. I don't have a package to see who makes them, but they are not Wilton. 16 oz. to a bag. I use
Wilton's gel to color them (not oil based), and they work just fine. Have colored the white ones all different colors and have not added vegetable shortening.

My favorite melting candy is unfortunately seasonal...but every Christmas, Sam's Club gets big bars of Ghiradelli's chocolate or white melting chocolate for $5-$6 (nice size). Also I use almond bark.

But seems like that stuff is mostly seasonal ANYwhere, so between times I just get whatever candy discs I can find if I need them.

Thanks Everyone! I knew yall would be full of answers for my as husband called it. Cow Poop! lol Guess i should have punished him for that comment by not letting him have 4 leftover fishy cupcakes last nite. But if he didnt eat them i would have and thats not good lol

Thanks again everyone. Problem solved

Tina