I am making a wedding cake and the brides color is apple red. She has picked out a cake that has royal icing red roses on it. My royal icing doesn't get past a mauve color...any suggestions. I used wiltons red red coloring, I was thinking maybe I needed to use a different brand or possibly a paste. Any suggestions would be great!

I suggest you get the Americolor Super Red, and be sure to offset the increased amount of liquid you'll be adding in the form of food color with an extra tablespoon of meringue powder when you make your royal icing.

You should be able to acheive a good red with the Wilton color, though. You will need to add a LOT of color to get it to red, and you will need to allow some time for the color to develop.

~ Sherri

For the most vivid deep red I would suggest powder red colouring. You will only get a dark pink with the Wiltons.

Here's a hint. First use pink and get your icing as pink as possible. Then use red; it'll make the color darker and deeper. (This is similar how, when you make black icing, it's better to start with chocolate icing than white icing).

ARGHHHH, just went through this myself in Dec.. except the bride wanted Crimson. I must have made 6 batches of icing 4 BC and 2 royal before I finally got the color I wound up with.. see my photos. I had to break down and call my WMI, and he suggestion worked. She said it takes a lot of red, so I bought 3 no taste reds from wilton and used them all.. thank God they were no taste... and thank God they were on sale at the time... I probably spent more money on wasting supplies with that cake... anyway her trick was dip your toothpick into black coloring... I mean just a hair and tint your white royal, then start adding your red. Once you put the black on the white it will turn it a pale shade of grey and keeps it from starting at white.. the problem I had was just like anything else, add red to white and do you get? PINK... mauve, anything other than red... so try that and let me know if it helps.. have plenty of red, and like I said.. get the wilton no taste red because it takes a lot of color and if you get the red-red or the other reds,it is going to taste like dye....

oh and I learned this... if you are placing on a white cake.. make sure the bottoms of the flowers are completely dry and warn your bride when cutting the cake that the red stains!

Yeah it will probably take a whole bottle or more of Americolor Red depending on how much icing you need...and it is also true that a tiny bit of black will help darken it. Not too much though or it will turn maroon (I made that mistake recently!)

Reds darken a lot overnight. You could like make it as dark as you can the day before and let it sit over night.
HTH,
Emily

Thank you so much for all the great advice. This was my first post and I didnt think anyone would respond. Where do you all buy your americolor?

Thanks again!

I get mine here at the Cake Caentral store.Iit is a Really good price right now.
HTH

I've used a combination of burgundy and super Red too. Same philosophy as adding the black, probably.....

With the Wilton colors, you can also use a combination of the no-taste red, the christmas red and the red-red -- this is the suggestion from my Wilton instructor and until I was able to buy the Americolor brand, that was how I got red frostings; one other suggestion, make up the frosting way in advance so the colors have time to "stew" and get darker.

Hope this helps....

....and ANY good Red-Raider fan MUST know how to make a good red. LISTEN TO THIS GIRL!!!!