Colouring Chocolate - Oil Colours?

Sugar Work By zespri Updated 19 Nov 2010 , 7:25pm by TexasSugar

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zespri Posted 19 Oct 2010 , 10:32pm
post #1 of 6

Has anyone had experience with colouring chocolate?

I have noticed the americolor 'flo-coat', which apparently you can add to your existing gels to make a successful chocolate colour. It sounds too good to be true! Has anyone tried it? It would certainly be nice to be able to use my existing gel colours.

If that is no good, then my next question would be whether to buy the oils or the powders. I understand I must mix the powder with some canola oil to get it to work smoothly, but the oils can be used straight out of the bottle.

Any words of advice welcome!

5 replies
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Scarlets-Cakes Posted 19 Oct 2010 , 10:50pm
post #2 of 6

I've only used Chefmaster oil colors. But it worked beautifully and very easily. Made purple chocolate to drizzle over brownie bites for a wedding. Good luck!

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KoryAK Posted 19 Oct 2010 , 11:04pm
post #3 of 6

I haven't tried mixing the powders with oil - in school we mixed them directly in with a little bit of the chocolate (grinding the mix together against the counter with a spatula - it sucked) and then that into the whole thing. Me - I'm all for the oil based colorings! I own flo-coat, but I have never tried it. Fact of the matter is there is WATER (chocolate enemy) in your regular colorings and adding oil (flo-coat) to it is not going to change that. It's the same (as far as I know - someone correct me) as adding a little coloring, having it seize a bit, then adding oil to fix it - but all in one step.

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zespri Posted 19 Oct 2010 , 11:11pm
post #4 of 6

@Scarlets-Cakes: damnit, now I know that Chefmaster does them, I want those ones! They are the most common brand of gel colour sold here in New Zealand, but I can't see to find any reference to them selling oils in NZ on google. I went to their website to see if they had a list of suppliers... not. And under their 'contact' link, it appears you have to be a company to talk to them. Poos!!

@KoryAK: Your story about grinding the powder with the chocolate is enough to put me off it really! I have a little bit of red at home that I bought to colour icing (red powder produces a deeper red than gel does), so maybe I can try it with a little bit of oil and see how that goes.

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planetsomsom Posted 18 Nov 2010 , 5:07am
post #5 of 6

you can get cocoa butter colours from Chef Rubber.

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TexasSugar Posted 19 Nov 2010 , 7:25pm
post #6 of 6

I've used the flo-coat. My opinion is that it works but does take alot of it, atleast it seemed to, to keep the chocolate thin. This summer I went ahead and bought some of the Americolor candy colors, and figured I'd save the flow coat for rare colors or colors I can't get in candy colors.

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