After sitting for what might be days looking at posts that date back two years ago and your pictures, I feel prettyy stupid asking this.
Again, lol, i just started....
How do I make my frosting red?
cos it wont go farther than deep pink. and my bride wants red.
All i can get here is the liquid food coloring from the supermarket. no gels or powders. I used a whole bottle so far and all I can get is dark pink. Do I add some more? I'm worried adding so much liquid will water down my bc? Or do I just let it water down and then add more sugar once I got the color I want?
LOL thanks all. I feel so dumb asking this LOL. super newbie here!

If you have time, I would suggest ordering some gel or powder colors. I'm not sure how to get a red-red from liquid color.

Yes, just add more. Your supermarket might have bigger bottles of red food coloring...I think that's why it comes that way.

For next time, you might think about ordering color online...it seems expensive but the gel colors last so much longer because they're more concentrated that it makes up for it. Americolor super red works really well.

It takes a TON of coloring. Try wiltons "no taste red". You have to use so much that is gives it a bitter taste. The no taste red will not do this.

This is far from a dumb question!
In fact, it gets asked all the time.
Don't bother trying with the liquid food colorings. Use Americolor brand gel colors, they work the best for all colors, especially for black and red. You can get a student pack (an assortment of colors) off E-Bay cheap or through any on-line cake stores.

How do you find time to make cakes with 3 sets of twins?!?!?!?

I don't think it's a dumb question--Red must be the most difficult color to make! It takes a lot of coloring, with just about any brand, but especially the grocery store colors, as they are less concentrated than the gels.

If you can't get the gel colors, you will probably just have to keep adding the liquid color until you get the color you want, but as you guessed, you'll probably have to add more powdered sugar in the end (or along the way) if your BC gets too thin.

Hope that works! Good luck w/ your cake!

duplicate post

Americolor brand colors. Americolor Super Red will color your bc as red as you want it without changing the flavor of the bc!
I highly recommend all of the Americolor colors for all decorating needs. Achieving a true black is even more difficult than getting a true red, in my opinion. The Americolor Super Black will get you a true black. Their colors are true.

I personally find that when you let it sit for a day or two it eventually turns red. I have not used liquid food coloring from the super market but have used the wilton brand red red icing color. What I do is put a whole bunch of the coloring in my BC and mix really well (it will be pink..but just try to get the darkest pink you can get)and then I leave it in the fridge for at least one whole day (sometimes two) the longer the better (needless to say you have to make it well in advance) if you leave it for just a day then when you take it out of the fridge you will probably have to and more red red and as you frost your cake it will turn red. if you leave it for more then a day it more than likely will be red. hth

I haven't tried this personally but had a student come back and tell me she did it and it worked great...

She needed red for a fire engine truck. She replaced the water with the liquid red food coloring and got a great red. Because she replaced the water with the liquid it didn't thin down her cake.

My red (or almost red, lol) gets redder (is that a word?) when it has been in the refrigerator for a couple of days. I have not tried the americolor black yet...but I can't wait! Good luck. If I am in a hurry, sometimes I just buy a ready made red at the craft store.

Sometimes when I'm in a pinch I go to my local grocery store's bakery dept. and buy and oz. or more of their coloring. I know that Walmart won't do it but my small town grocery store will and it is way more concentrated that regular food coloring.

well thank GOD I made it today then cos we dont need it until friday.
Ive ordered some stuff online but living in the middle east, ughhhh, I ordered 161 dollars worth of stuff and now Ihave to pay at least 183 dollars for them to ship 11 lbs. there isnt evben a mail service here. So I have to either go that way or worj with what i have, which is just liquid. thank you SOOOO much you guys!!! I so appriciate it and will post pics when im done!!! I'll try adding a little more coloring and then adding some more sugar too. thank you so much!! I am so addicted to this website.

I found that to get the best red I start out with yellow, then add orange and then a LOT of red.
At first it seems like it is orangey-red but don't panic, it will eventually turn into a beautiful rich red. I used this for my Spiderman cake in the gallery and a bunch of other cakes and cookies that I have yet to post.

thank you cv, wow Im gonna have to expeiment with that too, I really hope I can get it to work cos if its like you said, I think thats what I'm gonna have to do from now on due to lack of options. thanks so much fo the tip!

thank you cv, wow Im gonna have to expeiment with that too, I really hope I can get it to work cos if its like you said, I think thats what I'm gonna have to do from now on due to lack of options. thanks so much fo the tip!

Can you get Kool Aid there? To use as food color?

(now that's a dumb question! but I'm clueless)

Red always darkens after it sits, considerably. Take some and spread it on a paper plate. let it sit for an hour and see what it does. you may already have your color.

I found that when using red or black colours you need to give the colour a bit of time to develop. I recently did a red and black cake and I noticed that the colour started to deepen after about 15 minutes. I did however use the powdered colours like I normally do.

Another important thing to remember is that if you want vivid colour in your buttercream you need to use only white margarine or even better a butter flavoured white margarine. I find that the butter or yellow margarine tends to offset the colour a bit so no matter how much colour you add it will be difficult to obtain a true colour. I once used blue liquid food colouring in my buttercream and it turned green.