Help Coloring Cake Batter (Red, White, Blue...)
Decorating By kkhigh Updated 4 Sep 2008 , 5:08am by ceshell
Hello,
How do I achieve good coloring for a patriotic cake? (the cake itself...not the icing)
I would like each cake layer to be a different color (red, white, blue). I have the white part figured out but what to do about red and blue? Do I just add lots of food color? (i have wilton gels or standard grocery liquids). Will this affect the taste or texture? If it is going to taste yucky or color everyones mouths I would rather skip the idea but if anyone knows how to do it I think it would be a neat effect.
Thanks for any help!
-kim
You could use strawberry for the red--it'll be pink, not red, but with white and blue it'll still look patriotic. I don't know of any blue cakes (blueberry maybe????), but if you stay with a more pastel look, it shouldn't take too much food color.
In one of the other forums someone mentioned adding up to 1 cup of fresh strawberries to a strawbarry cake mix. She said it made it a nice red color. Doesn't help with the blue though. Wonder if you could do the same thing with blackberries or blueberries in a white cake.
OH! One thing I forgot to add.....people were reminded of the cake days later!
Hahahahahaha...that reminds me of when I was an ER nurse and people would arrive in a panic with unusual colored...well you know... (I am trying to be nice here 
) and we would ask them "Did you eat anything with a lot of food coloring in the past couple of days?"...they would look really embarrassed and say "Oh yeah...I forgot about that..." It was always good for a big laugh and a sigh of relief!
Hahahahahaha...that reminds me of when I was an ER nurse and people would arrive in a panic with unusual colored...well you know... (I am trying to be nice here Lips are Sealed ) and we would ask them "Did you eat anything with a lot of food coloring in the past couple of days?"...they would look really embarrassed and say "Oh yeah...I forgot about that..." It was always good for a big laugh and a sigh of relief!
I must admit, dyed some cake recently and this happened to my dad! (He did eat a lot of the cake though!) no hospital run - good ole mom figured it out right away. [Though he did call me asking if I was trying to kill him !]
You may also want to try a treditional red velvet cake for the red (it is a southern tradition, kind of a lihgt cholocate cake, with red food coloring - very yummy, usually frosted with cream cheese frosting)
One word of warning, if you are using mixes. be sure and take into account the color of the mix (ie a yellow cake mix batter, when you add blue make green).
I like the idea of adding stawberries (yum!) and making the blue layer blueberry) You could also make the filing or frosting the last color (ie red and white cake with blue filling)
when you post a picture, be sure and post one of the sliced cake!
One of the things you might try so to do a marbled color in white cake rather than doing a whole layer of solid color. This gets the idea across without all the color.
I have done this for baby shower cakes. Just color a small amount of batter then drizzle on top and then swirl it in.
At least you wouldn't have a blue mouth!!!! lol
I picked up a box of Pillsbury classic white cake mix and just happened to see cupcakes on the side panel that were colored blue. The instructions have you baking the cupcakes and then poking holes in them and pouring flavored fruit gelatin over them to achieve the rainbow color you want. I'm not sure how this would work for a whole cake layer, but its a thought.
They used to call those Jello Poke Cakes, because you poke holes with a fork or a straw and then pour on the jello. here is a link to a recipe:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,186,158173-231203,00.html
You could use strawberry jello and one of their new blue flavor jellos.
They look really pretty too. That sounds like a great idea, in my opinion 
In Germany we have a parrot cake, where you basically divide your cake batter into as manny colours you want and just add uncooked jello in the colours you want to the batter itself. Colours the batter nicely. So just mix your batter, add jello and bake.
last year I did a three layer red/white/blue cake using the jello mixed into the batter method
but...I didn't like the end result at all.
the cake was very sticky, had a funny firmness too it, and the taste wasn't all that good either.
next time, I'll try americolor and after that powdered colors
Here is a cake I did last year for the 4th of July. I started with a white cake mix and just colored my batter with wilton gels. I didn't notice any difference in taste and no colored mouths in the bunch. I just mixed in a little at a time until i got it fairly dark. Once the colors are together they don't have to be really vibrant, they look like the right color once they're all together.
HTH
Leily
Here is a cake I did last year for the 4th of July. I started with a white cake mix and just colored my batter with wilton gels. I didn't notice any difference in taste and no colored mouths in the bunch. I just mixed in a little at a time until i got it fairly dark. Once the colors are together they don't have to be really vibrant, they look like the right color once they're all together.
HTH
Leily
Wow ... that cake is beautiful!!! This may be a silly question, but how did you get the different colors in those block-like shapes? Did you use special pans? I really, really love that cake!!!!! 
Here's a flag cake I did for last year on the 4th of July. I didn't get a chance to ice it--was supposed to be whipped cream icing and I kept making butter--but the cake part turned out fine. (I was getting used to a new Professional KA and it was much, much faster than my old one--hence the inability to make whipped cream properly. UGH!)
I just used French Vanilla cakes and tinted them with Americolors. You use MUCH less color to achieve the same results as with Wilton gels.
HTH!!
Lisa
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