I found a great recipe (Paula Deen's) for Blue Velvet Cake. It's kind of a remake of the Red Velvet. I'm wanting to make it this weekend for a get together with our Sunday School Class. It calls for blue food color which is impossible to find. I was wondering if it would be possible to use blue Americolor gel. Anyone know? How much would I use? My mom came up with the suggestion of using blue jello but that would give it a blueberry taste which I don't think would taste really good with the cocoa. Any other suggestions or ideas? Thanks!

USUALLY YOU CAN FIND FOOD COLORING IN THE BAKING AISLE OF ANY GROCERY STORE...

it's possible with americolor gel. But most powdered or liquid foodcoloring gives it more color when you heat it in the oven.

I did red/white/blue cupcakes for JUly 4th using americolor blue in a white mix and they turned out nice.

I use Wilton's No Taste Red gel color in my Red Velvet. I would assume Wilton's Blue would work the same in a Blue Velvet. I use Chef Stef's recipe here on CC and it is moist so the gel color works just fine, I don't have to use a liquid coloring.

Why is blue food color "impossible to find" It's a primary color and is in the box with green, yellow and red. In the baking aisle at the supermarket.

Post photos of your cake...never heard of 'blue velvet' but it sounds interesting.

Thanks for all the replies. Baked the cake using my Americolor Gel. Looks awesome on the outside - I won't be cutting until tomorrow night but I'll take pictures. I'm anxious to see what the inside looks like. The icing is Marshmallow Cream Cheese w/ Pecans and Coconut in it.

It was impossible to find blue food coloring because I needed 2 1oz. bottles. It would have taken about 8 boxes of the small bottles to get what I need. Needless to say that was a little pricey for me. The Americolor worked great and I didn't need as much as I would have if I had used the regular food color.

Paula Deen has some fabulous recipes on her website. I also made a Pink Lemonade Cake w/ Pink Lemonade Buttercream Filling and Chocolate Buttercream Icing, a Pineapple Blueberry Crunch Cake & a Pineapple Upside Down Cake w/ Pineapple Buttercream Icing. These were all recipes from her website. I'll let you know what everyone's favorite is.

I can see why you had issues finding the blue color. My wal-mart has the larger bottles of the primary colors. I've got to try this recipe. I'm not crazy about a lot of food color but for a 'special' occasion I'd so do this cake.
I cannot wait to see your pictures.

Her website is www.PaulaDeen.com.

I went to 3 different stores looking for the big bottles of food coloring. All I could find was green, red & black.

I'll post pictures after I cut it.

I've toyed with the idea of having an Elvis's birthday party, and serving blue velvet cake. However, I'm one of those weird people who have trouble eating abnormally-colored food, including red velvet cake.

Here are some blue velvet cake examples:
http://tinyurl.com/2dw7z64

I think this one is the most attractive, and I could stomach it, no problem.
http://desertcandy.blogspot.com/2007/05/56-blues.html

If you want larger bottles of the colors you are looking for just order the liquid colors that are used in the air brush. When I took a class the instructor told us that we could use the colorings for cooking also. They are just liquid food coloring. Hope this helps someone.
evelyn

That's a LOT of blue! Hope everyone doesn't mind blue teeth and tongues!

OKay you guys, I don not have time to make a blue velvet cake, and you all have me craving one! I cannot wait to try it! Guess I'll just go back to my decorating and turn Elvis up really loud--- You can do anything you want to do, but uh, uh, honey stay off of my shoes-------

SuziSweet,
Thank you! Those would be perfect! Adorable idea to make the banana slice crowns.

I started making cakes in the late 70's, early 80's, when blue was "THE" wedding color (baby blue, powder blue ... not even a pretty blue!)

Anyway, having blue cake was kinda popular and I heard/learned early on that there isn't really any food that is naturally "blue". Even blueberries are not a pure "blue". And what I was told/learned is that people are leary of eating foods that don't look natural.

I began to observe that brides who wanted their cake batter dyed blue, tended to have more leftover cake than brides who had regular cake with just blue decor.

People are not keen on eating blue foods. For whatever reason, I've just observed it to be true.

Indydebi, you are so right about people not wanting blue food. My mother thought it would be a good idea to make ALL of the foods for one of her brunch parties blue. Blue onion dip, blue coffee cake, blue cream cheese for the bagels. She even made blue scrambled eggs, by just scrambling the whites and coloring them. There was a LOT of food left over.

When my son was 4, he insisted he wanted a "Yellow" theme for his birthday. You know, yellow food and beverages works a lot better than blue? That's when I realized that many of the child-friendly foods and flavors are yellow.

At one place I worked, we planned a St. Patrick's day pitch in and we required all green foods. I used spinach noodles and made green beef-n-noodles! You wouldn't believe how pretty a veggie tray is with cucumbers, green peppers, green onions, olives, celery and Green Goddess salad dressing as the dip! Gorgeous!

That does sound gorgeous, but that is probably because those foods are supposed to be green.

Now, if the beef was green, too, it would have been a bit much. (I have friends who insist that the burgers that thy were told to put in a fast food chain's chili were green, but that is another story.)

Yeah, I am not keen on eating any food that is neon or dyed, especially cake. I think I had red velvet once, but the fact that all that color is dumped in the batter grosses me out. I remember when I was a kid, I had some kind of wacky vanilla ice cream, which was dyed royal blue and green and stuff, and let's just say, the next day I got a little freaked out.

That was it for me on foods dyed unnatural and crazy colors!

I don't mind eating dyed foods, but my Mom freaks out!
She don't like anything blue- it reminds her of mold and anti-freeze...
she won't even eat blue jell-o... BUT any other color is fine...lol
Jodi