Hi all,

I am quite new to cake decorating and recently did a spiderman cake and being a novice I coloured my fondant with my wilton colours and waited until the absolute last minute before decorating. The cake came out nice but unfortunately the colours were quite dull and pasty. I have seen pictures of cakes with vibrant colours hence my search for bright food colourings. Reading a few threads on here people have suggested using americolor and I started searching for it.

My question is do I buy just the soft food gels? or the electric colours? There seem to be quite a variety and I just want to make sure I get the right ones.

Also, if there are any brands that give even more vivid colours and don't affect the taste I would be grateful for the knowledge.

Many thanks in advance.

The electric colors are gel.  They are just more of an "electric" color.  They are just different shades of green, yellow, blue, etc.

Most places I've seen will sell the electric colors in either a group or single.  Just like any color, you can make them darker, deeper, etc. when adding additional colors to them.  For example I use royal blue from wilton and add black into it and it becomes a navy blue.

AWhen I want a vibrant color I definitely use the electric Americolors. I still use the no taste Wilton red when I need a very saturated red color. I use buttercream on all of my cakes so that is what I a coloring. Also, I color my icing the night before to allow time for it to bloom. It does darken considerably more. Hope this helps.

I love my Americolor gels.  I started off with a set (that's how it was sold), then slowly bought more individual bottles.  I will say unless you are going to use a lot of one color, I would stick with the small bottles. Some of my small bottles have liquefied (the ones I rarely use).  I have the electric colors as well as many of their other colors.

I can now buy Americolor gels at Hobby Lobby.  I love being able to do that instead of ordering online.  I buy a big bottle of red because I also use that in my Red Velvet cakes.   I also buy black in the big bottle since you have to use a lot of it depending on what you are coloring.

At this link you will find some good information on Americolor gels.

http://thedecoratedcookie.com/2010/05/all-about-food-coloring/

Here is a link to a blog that might help someone who doesn't want to purchase a lot of different colors.

http://bakeat350.blogspot.com/2011/01/7-food-colors-i-cant-live-without-works.html