I have so much trouble getting my buttercream icing to a pretty RED...it always turn a yucky redish but never a true red. I have no problem with coloring rolled buttercream red. Should I color the Buttercream icing a different shade first before adding red? I have used wilton no taste red and I have tried a powered red from CK products...? Used a whole bottle of wilton red on only 2 cups of icing...
Any advice would be appreciated!

I have read for red (LOL, sounds funny), that you should start with making your icing a very dark pink. Many CC members have had great success with getting your icing a true red. They also let it sit overnight(or a few hours), after adding the red to the pink icing, to let it deepen to see if the need to add more red. Due to BC darkening as it rests=) HTH some, Jen

I had to make red frosting this week-end for a graduation cake. I was very pleased with my final red until I opened the box this morning. My red had turned almost garnet. I couldn't believe how much the red had darkened. I started out by making a deep pink (Americolor), then used Americolor Red Red.

Now I am not sure what to do the next time. Instead of high school colors I had college colors.

darkchocolate

I didnt have much luck with red before i bough the americolor super red!! now i dont have a fear of making red (i gave the wilton to my sister whos starting out in cake decorating)

I always add just a touch of maroon to give my red a deeper, richer color.

I agree with MissLady85. I couldn't get a good red for the life of me until I bought Americolor Super Red I got on this site. I have never had a problem with red since then.

I had a spiderman cake due this Sunday and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get the red right and it would look like spidey in pink. I tried a few different techniques (coloring the icing pink first, coloring it red and then letting it sit, and making chocolate bc and then coloring it red) and the only one that really worked for me was making a light chocolate icing and then coloring it red, I also let it sit for about an hour before I used it for decorating. Not only did I get a beautiful red color, I also had a delicious icing.

I feel like i use red alot, its a pain in the A, but u have to make it like a week in advance , eventhough ur going to use alot of the red paste anyway. everyday in the fridge the icing gets darker. to me it seems if u add a touch of burgandy it helps a tiny bit but not much. trust me start now and by sunday u'll be fine. I did a betty boop cake and the primary color was red and i was fine. so as soon as u read this go make some red icing and add a bunch of the color and keep adding everday until u get the one u want.