Please help, ive just made some cupcakes and wanted to do pink buttercream topping but the buttercream wont go a full colour, im left with specks of the original cream colour and cant get a full pink. i used a wisk to mix it is as much as possible and was using wilton rose gel colouring. it works perfect for colouring icing to cover a cake. what am i doing wrong??

Thank you

Have you tried using a spatular and giving your bowl a good scraoe around the sides - and especially down the bottom of your mixing bowl?

Then as when you fold egg whites - use your spatular to *cut and fold* throw the BC.
Then give it another blast with your wisk attachment.

Actually - do you have the Paddle attachment? - I prefer to use that.

Bluehue.

What exactlymis your buttercream recipe? Is it made with butter or shortening? This will make a difference in how color takes.

I have only had that problem when I used the 1/2 butter 1/2 shortening recipes and it just didn't want to mix well, but I live in Fl so sometimes my weather affects it.

Without seeing your recipe to know exacly what's in there.
My guess is you have used vegetable shorting and that it isn't mixed well so your "little white specs" are little bits of the crisco which won't take color.

To avoid this in the future you'll want to make sure that you cream your crisco longer to get all of those little pieces smoothed out and they'll incorporate with your PS better.

I'm not understanding why there are specs, but sometimes color has to 'bloom' to become as dark as you'd like. I've walked away from red for several hours when it was a dark pink and found a vibrant red when I got back.

ive been using butter and icing sugar. ive had no problems when mixing in liquid colouring but the paste just doesnt seem to take. the more i put in the darker the colour goes but still cream left in there :/ i would just go back to using liquid colouring but i have lots of wilton paste pots and i love the colours so its a shame not to use them

Perhaps try mixing a little buttercream with your gel colour in a separate bowl, then add that small fully coloured amount to your bowl on the mixer? Either make that small amount a couple of shades darker, or keep doing this process bit by bit til you get the shade you are looking for.
I have found that adding colour with a toothpick to my main bowl can sometimes mean I get uncoloured bits.

have you tried using a hand mixer? thats how i get my colors to mix up real good. Just put one beater on and mix for a couple mins. I hope you get it fixed!

Sometimes, it's the salt in the buttercream.