I am asking this question on behalf of my brother (as I do not know the answer either)!

He has made buttercream in the past, and had no problems at all (using butter, icing sugar and a drop of milk). 

He wanted to colour the last batch of buttercream using Sugarflair gel.  He made the buttercream as normal and added the green colouring, but then the buttercream seemed to "split" and the colour just seemed to be at the bottom of the mixing bowl. 

Can you not use Sugarflair gel to colour buttercream?  I have never coloured any myself, so I could not answer his question.

Hi there I color my buttercream frosting all the time and I have never had this happen. The only thing that I could think it could be is the type of food coloring he is using. The kind that I use is Americolor gel this can be found at stores like hobby lobby this is food coloring is great for coloring any type of frosting . I hope this helps ! 

Thank you for taking the time to reply.

I am not familiar with the brand you have mentioned, I am from the UK.

I thought Sugarflair was a good brand.........my brother and I have both used it to colour fondant and have never had any problems??

Can you over mix buttercream?  We both wondered whether this may have had something to do with it?

(Sorry for the many questions, we are both still new to this)!

x

Hi :)  I use Sugarflair and it has always been fine ... Maybe try adding more sifted I.S. to reverse the split ?  I don't think it's the colour that's the issue xx

Hi there,

He added a LOT more icing sugar, but unfortunately this made no difference???  In the end, he just threw it away and made a fresh batch WITHOUT the colour!lol

I suppose it's just one of life's mysteries!!!! x