I made a cake this weekend that was supposed to be cream colored for top stak and light chocolate brown for bottom layer. No matter how much brown I put in the buttercream icing, I never got a brown color. It was a sickening mustard looking color. After completing the cake, I took the top stack off and made another bottom layer. I still never got the color I wanted. Any suggestions as to why brown is not brown.

I've found that Wilton makes the only true brown. All the other browns have red added. If you did use Wilton brown, then I don't know what else could have happened.

mrsa143,

In my experience, Wilton recommends that if you want brown icing, then you should always start by adding cocoa powder to it to achieve the shade of brown you want. You can always add Wilton brown gel colour after the cocoa to intensify it if it's not quite brown enough. Honestly, though, you can get a rich dark brown colour with cocoa alone. If you don't want to use cocoa you can use carob powder instead. I made a fudgy carob BC icing one time with just carob powder and didn't have to add any brown gel colour at all.

Hope this helps,
David

a tad of black Wilton coloring adding along with the brown will also give you the shade you trying to achieve if you don't want the chocolate flavor. just be careful not to add too, much. it only takes a smidgen of black. hth

I had really good luck with the Americolor Chocolate Brown.