A friend of mine wants me to make an engagement cake for her friend. The colors are deep red and champagne. Any helpful hints on how to get fondant colored a deep red and champagne color?! TIA!! (I don't have an airbrush, but wish i did, because i think it would be helpful w the champagne color )

Red is one of those colours that honestly is better to buy premade (I'd go with Satin Ice). I don't know if ivory is close enough to champagne but you could try that (pre-made or homemade).

The other thought was to mix ivory and gold. Or you might even want to add a tiny bit of pink to it. What i'd do is have a swatch of the colour I was going for and try to match it.

Don't buy wilton's red. I made this mistake and last night I opened the package only to find dryed out pink!!

If you have time I would order (or if you can buy locally) Satin Ice's RED. I haven't personally tried it but have heard lots of good things, and that's what I'll be doing next time.

If you do try to color it yourself (assuming you are making MMF) you will need to add LOTS and LOTS of color into the marshmallow mix before adding the sugar. I've also heard that coloring it a deep pink before adding the red will help, but haven't tried that either. GOOD LUCK!

Thanks so much! I have the Satin Ice red and Black that i normally use for those colors, but i've had it crack on me many times. Can I add a bit of crisco when kneeding it to prevent that? Also, if she's wanting a dark red, can I add a bit of black color to it to get it darker, or will that ruin it? I think for the champagne im going to add vanilla extract instead of clear vanilla to get it a bit more on the brown side instead of white, then maybe a touch of pink to brighten it up? Does that sound wrong? haha

Again, all help is appreciated

Sounds like a good plan to me. I would pinch off a tiny piece of the red and then knead in a tad bit of black to see what color you come up with.

Which is the primary color and which is the accent color? If the champagne is just the accent color, I would add pearl luster dust over your ivory color.

Here's a colour mixing chart thread (there's a Wilton chart I think on either page 2 or 3 too):

http://cakecentral.com/cake-decorating-ftopict-589750-mixing.html+chart

As for the cracking yes you can knead a little bit of shortening into your fondant and you might also want to roll it out with small amount of shortening smeared on your counter or mat.

HTH!

Thank you SOO much for that thread!!!

I think we have agreed upon having champagne as the main color and the crimson red as the accent color (makes my life a lot easier!) Now, when you do luster dust over the whole tier, what do you use? I've heard of ppl mixing it with vodka and then brushing it over it all...?

The best thing you can do is a sample on a bit of rolled out fondant. Mark it in two pieces and try one half dry dusted with a new soft plush makeup blush brush and try the other the wet painted way mixed with vodka. Let it dry for an hour and see which one you like best. Be sure to test a large enough peice that on the wet side you will be able to see if you like whatever brush stroke pattern that comes from your hand. After I did one I opted for the dry brush!!! Haha It was kind of like A Stary Night. An air brush would do it perfectly but I don't have one either.

Americolor Super Red will give you a great deep red color with no bitter taste. It takes much less than Wilton paste to acheive deep colors so it will not affect the consistency of your fondant.