I had the weirdest thing happen to me last night while I was decorating a cake. I made a batch of chocolate American Buttercream icing and was decorating an owl cake using the star tip. When I got the small details out of the way, I loaded up another piping bag so I could use my triple star tip and discovered that the icing in the first bag had darkened quite a bit and now the new icing I was piping onto the cake was a lighter colour!  I am at a loss as to why this happened.....any suggestions?  I'd like to avoid this happening again in the future.

Thanks

Jennifer

chocolate is flukey like that

did the triple star-ed stuff also darken by now by any chance?

mabey the first batch melted a little by the heat of your hands while holding the bag? just a guess, hope you figure it out!

The triple star buttercream did darken a little bit after being on the cake but not as dark as the single star buttercream.  I'm sure the buttercream with the single star softened a little while I was working with it but I can't imagine that would deepen the colour, would it??

AIt is absolutely melted, and it deepens the color. I have hot hands, so if I have a bunch of detail work to do, or just a lot of piping to do, I make up 2 bags, and just keep switching, so they don't have a chance to warm up. It works the same for whipped icing. I did a 6 tier whipped icing basket weave once. I used 4 bags with all the same icing and tip, to keep it all the right consistency.

If I melt a bag of buttercream, and it gets too dark, I squeeze it out into the bowl and remix with the rest of it, then re bag it.

Thanks Annabakescakes for confirming that it does actually darken when it melts a little.....I totally didnt know that!   I will for sure take your advise and prepare two different icing bags and alternate between the two next time.  Thank everyone for helping me solve the problem