Hi all!

So I am currently working on a cake for later today (!!!) and I need lemon flavored black buttercream. I understand that I have to use ALOT of black coloring, but I have use the WHOLE jar and my icing is army green!!!! I can't make more but a) I can't get anymore lemon flavoring and b) I don't have time to go to the store and get more black coloring. Is there another color I can add to the mix to get it to turn blackish (doesn't even need to be total black, can be a dark shade a gray) PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE, any help woulod be awesome!!!!

Thank you for your ideas in advance!!!

HUmmm.. thats a hard one. Black is Black. not much you can do to get around that. Try experimenting with a small bit of icing... try a touch or dark brown or a touch of red........even air brush color will work in a pinch but then you have to add more powered sugar or corn starch to counterart the additional water found in Air brush colors.
Keep in mind it will darken a lot as it sits.
Good luck,

Hello, I would take lil'bit of the buttercream and add some purple to it, maybe it'll help get to that black color. or purple and red; until you reach the closes shade to black you need. Keep an eye for how you much you add so that you know about how much to add to the rest of the buttercream batch. I hope this helps a'lil. Good Luck

I think i am just going to have to start over and not have a lemon buttercream. I added the whole jar of brown coloring to it and its even more army then it was. Boo hoo. I wonder what the hell happened. Maybe it just spread it too thin... Do you think the flavoring affected the coloring process? I was using a dessert paste instead of a flavoring because its a more bitter lemon taste which is what I was going for. I have always done black in small amounts of buttercream. This time I needed it for the whole cake. hmmm. something to think about.

I would just stir it well, cover closely with plastic and allow the color to peak for an hour or so, restir and decorate.

I really doubt it's the flavoring. Black and all dark colors for that matter, are hard to achieve. Time is the trick. You need to let it sit, as the previous post said. It will deepen in time.

One negative to adding so much coloring is, it too may add bitterness to the flavor.

Just let it be for an hour or so if you can and see what happens.

Good Luck!

What brand black are you using to color the icing with? Some have a greener color some have a purple color cast to them. I have since switched to Americolor If you happen to have a cake store near you that sells those tiny bottles of it that would help. Not that you want to go drive and pick some up but sometimes that saves you some more hassles because the color isn't right. I know you are in a time crunch and that may not be an option though.