How Do I Get My Icing Colors Bright Or Dark??
Baking By erinlynn22 Updated 27 Nov 2005 , 7:29pm by ReAnnon
I'm making Turkey Cookies for Thanksgiving, and i tried to make the Royal Icing dark brown, but ended up with light brown. Once the brown dries on the cookies, i'm going to put Red and Yellow feathers, beak on it. i want my red to be very red, and yellow to be very yellow. i always end up with pastel like colors. I used alot of the brown wilton Gel for the brown, and it wasn't getting any darker. I'm going to be doing this tomorrow night/monday. Please Help!! thanks all - Erin
You need to give your icing a chance to rest after you mix your colors in. MIx them to a shade or two less than what you want and let it rest a bit. Also, once your cookies are decorated and the air hits the icing it will brighten.
As far as the dark brown, use cocoa powder or melted chocolate.
Debbi
I'm making Turkey Cookies for Thanksgiving, and i tried to make the Royal Icing dark brown, but ended up with light brown. Once the brown dries on the cookies, i'm going to put Red and Yellow feathers, beak on it. i want my red to be very red, and yellow to be very yellow. i always end up with pastel like colors. I used alot of the brown wilton Gel for the brown, and it wasn't getting any darker. I'm going to be doing this tomorrow night/monday. Please Help!! thanks all - Erin
Royal icing is notorious for giving pastel colour. You will need to use a lot of color to get bright vivid colours.
This is one way I solve that problem. I go ahead and use the pastel icing. Then I let my pieces dry. Once thet are all dried paint them using your icing colours. You can control the intensity of the colours based oh how much or how little you use.
Princess
I always manage to get my icing pretty bright &/or dark (see pics in my photos) and I use the wilton color pastes. I just keep adding paste till I get the darkness I want. I have never noticed a difference in taste by adding more. Give that a try! 
~Katie
I agree with katiedeva. For brighter colors do as katiedeva said, keep adding paste till you get the color you want. Sometimes it helps if to add a tiny bit of black if you are trying to achieve a 'dark' color. I have never noticed a difference in taste either.
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