What do you find to be the best food coloring? Do you use powder or gel? I have heard that Americolor is good for black and red. Does anyone use Lorann powder? How does it work? I have to order some online but am not sure what would be the best to get. Thanks for any comments!

I love americolor for all colors not just the black and the red

Me too.....Americolor is my main colouring for any deep/dark colours (red/black/chocolate brown/purple/navy blue/fuchsia pink)...but for easy pastel colours pretty much anything will do. Wilton is fine for those, plus they do have a good selection of shades.

I used to use only wilton, but when I started using Americolor, I totally fell in love with it!!! I love that I can squirt it, not pour it and get it all over the side of the container or dig it out with a toothpick. And it gives such beautiful vivid colors. I'm currently weeding out the wilton colors and collecting more and more Americolor.

Last year I switched to Americolor for the red and black and sure don't regret it.............................

Ok now speaking of Americolor , is there a cheaper place than another to buy it?

Ok everyone,
I have only used Wilton, but would love to try out Americolor. When doing a character cake that requires specific colors, how will I know what color to use? That may be a stupid question, lol, but I had to ask=)

I prefer Americolor over Wilton. It dispenses gel color easier and less messy. And you can get them here from CC: http://shop.cakecentral.com/americolor-soft-paste-p-963.html

I love love love Americolor!

And, even with postage from the US to Ireland (from CC of course!), they are still so much cheaper than what is locally available!

Kelly

Americolor is really great--so easy to use. However, I still prefer Wilton no-taste red--all the other reds seem to have that yucky bitter taste. For all other colors though I prefer Americolor.

anyone got an opinion on Sugarflair from the UK? I have a few colours and like it a lot...but how is compared to Americolor? I am trying to use up my Wilton's before I replace with new...

I have a couple of Sugarflair colours. I have the Red Extra, which is so thick that it is tricky to mix into buttercream, becuase the blobs of it don't want to break up (and tastes very bitter) and the Black Extra, which isn't really black, but blue, which I unfortunately dicovered when I mixed some with alcohol for painting.

HTH

Kelly

I don't know if anyone will see this, since this thread is about 7 years old (!).  However, I've been trying to color gum paste to get a nice dark red.  I tried Americolor (Super Red) and I'm now trying Chefmaster (Tulip Red).  The gum paste looks perfect...until it dries.  Then, with both brands I get a kind of brownish hue to the red.  It's not really red at all.  And the two are identical.  I thought maybe I was adding too much gel, so I blended some white gum paste into a chunk of dark.  When I got to about 50:50 "red' to white, the small sample I made dried less brown, but still not really red.  What am I doing wrong and how can I fix it?  I want to use this for red roses.

You may get other suggestions, but I prefer to tint my gum paste a deep pink and then dust them with the shade of red petal dust that I need.

Rae

I tried for a deep red for a cake once. All an entire bottle of Wilton's no-taste red did was give a bitter taste an no deep red. Now I buy primary colors like red and black. 

How do you get the petal dust to cover inside the rose petals?  Do you dust each petal before attaching it?

you could i guess

especially if you want a contrasting color in there from the stem up partway

but i think it's more efficient to do it at the end

after it's dried & assembled i usually just slide the brush down in there between the petals a bit

you don't want it too dusty either to interfere with any gluing to be done either

the wet (from glue) dust might make a noticeable color difference

there are others much more qualified than me but that's how i do it

I have had luck mixing red fondont with my gumpaste and adding color from there. It takes a bit longer to dry hard but the color has been nice. I used this method to make this Pokemon Ball. It took a couple of days to dry but came out nice  and red.

AFor liquid food coloring I use americolor all the way.