How To Make Black Icing With Food Color

Instead start with a cocoa flavored base and then add color.

How to make black icing with food color. While black food coloring does exist you can make your own black icing using food coloring gel or paste. 1 cup white buttercream frosting 1 teaspoon of color. For starters mix two parts blue food coloring to five parts green and three parts red. To make black food dye start with a small batch first as exact proportions will vary depending upon what you re trying to tint.

Food coloring experts advise making gray by combining one part black and one part blue. Continue adding until you achieve your desired shade. The brand of food coloring may also affect the final tint. Black icing can be tricky to make as black food coloring often needs to be bought separately from most color packs and is sometimes difficult to find outside of specialty baking stores.

To turn white icing jet black you have to use a lot of black food dye or gel and too much can make for bitter chemical tasting frosting. Simply add black icing color to the chocolate icing using a toothpick or knife. If you don t have black icing powder gel or drops you can use conventional primary paste colors. This will work whether you use liquid gel or paste food coloring.

Next mix black gel dye into your icing a few drops at a time until it s the color you want. If you re making frosting you can also stir in black cocoa powder until the frosting looks black. To make black food coloring add equal parts of red blue and green food coloring to your recipe. Then spread a small amount on a white paper towel or mix the black directly into a little water.

Although you could mix your own black it takes a lot of different colors and a lot of food coloring to make such a deep color and all that food color can make your icing bitter and still not be the black you want. There are a few methods for creating black frosting that don t require dye at all. To make black icing start by making or buying chocolate icing since the brown color means you won t have to use as much black dye to get a dark hue. Adjust if one hue dominates by adding either red or green.

If it s not dark enough add a couple more drops of each color. It seems as though you need to add a whole bottle of food coloring in order to get the shade you want and that causes all kinds of problems see my ultimate guide to royal icing to read about issues caused by adding too much color. If the icing is bitter because of the dye try adding cocoa or carob powder to mask the flavor. Buttercream icing and fondant are all typically white to begin with and using food dyes to change all of that white to a true black takes a lot of color it s also important to use food coloring gel or paste and not the food coloring liquid.

Dark chocolate and dark cocoa are a good base for making black frosting. First it s important to note that making black food coloring requires a large quantity of color. Making black royal icing or any dark color can be such a pain. Learning how to make black icing isn t hard despite this.