Gray Colored Buttercream

Decorating By rebew10 Updated 17 Dec 2009 , 10:04pm by caseyhayes

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rebew10 Posted 17 Dec 2009 , 5:56am
post #1 of 8

I am trying to get a light color gray buttercream to match my son's baseball uniform. I added just a tad of black and of course it brings out the purple in it. Any suggestions on how to do this with out using luster dust, etc. ?

7 replies
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caseyhayes Posted 17 Dec 2009 , 6:14am
post #2 of 8

Well I would have said add just a tiny bit of black but since the purple is coming to the front of the black I just don't know. My castle cake that I used the tad of black to make gray was tinged purple too. I don't remember it doing that before. Maybe it's because the color is old? hopefully someone has the answer!!! Good luck...

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redpanda Posted 17 Dec 2009 , 7:02am
post #3 of 8

All black food colorings (and most black inks) are really made up of a number of different colored pigments. When you use only a little, instead of making "light black" (gray), it can end up looking like one of the component colors. I have had purple and green at various times, both with Wilton colors. With Americolor, I was able to get a nice gray color. (You can get an idea of the color from the elephant bird on my Seussical cake and the elephant on the jungle baby shower cake. These were fondant, but icings turn out that color of gray, too, when I use the Americolor Super Black.)

HTH

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rebew10 Posted 17 Dec 2009 , 1:28pm
post #4 of 8

I may have to try the purple and green and see what I get. I don't live anywhere near a vendor that sales Americolor unfortunately.......I either have to travel an hour or order on-line and I won't have time to do either this go round.

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indydebi Posted 17 Dec 2009 , 1:35pm
post #5 of 8

Black is made up of the three (pure) primary colors, red/blue/yellow. If the colors aren't pure, it won't show up as pure black. (And most colors on the shelf are not laboratory "pure").

If it's showing up purplish, my GUESS would be there is a shortage of yellow (red + blue = purple). I've no idea if altering the mix with some yellow would work or not.

It might also turn more grey if it sits for awhile, but that would depend on how much time you have, of course.

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rebew10 Posted 17 Dec 2009 , 2:38pm
post #6 of 8

Woo hooo!!!! Thanks Indydebi, yellow did it. I had a beautiful lavender coloring going and just a tad of yellow made it a perfect gray. Awesome.....thank you so much!

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j_arney Posted 17 Dec 2009 , 2:48pm
post #7 of 8

I've had trouble lately with my grey icing/fondant turning blue. I made a grey figurine out of fondant, and he turned blue. Last week I put a grey swirl of icing on cupcakes and 1 of those turned blue!! I'm not sure what the trouble is, but grey is difficult!!

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caseyhayes Posted 17 Dec 2009 , 10:04pm
post #8 of 8

I posted earlier about maybe the color was old. Although IndyDeby reason is probably the right one. I had to have gray fondant for a cake today so I bought some new black(at walmart so it's wilton) and it gave me a perfect gray. So there you have it, whatever that's worth.

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