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To tint frosting for a decorative cake, pick up some food coloring paste or gels from your local craft store or a cake decorating supply house. The colors widely available on grocery store shelves don't produce the brilliant, deep hues that pastes or gels do. In addition, gels and pastes come in an amazing variety of colors, so you may be able to buy a more unusual color like lavender, chartreuse, aqua, or magenta rather than mix it up yourself.
 | In tinting frosting, the key is to add just a little coloring at a time. The gel color is very concentrated, so a little goes a long way. If you dump in a whole bunch at once, you have no recourse in correcting the color if it's too deep, too bright, or just plain wrong. |
Follow these steps for tinting frosting:
1. Insert a toothpick into the jar of gel, and scoop out a tiny bit of coloring.
2. Shake a drop or two of coloring into the frosting, and stir it in with a spoon, evenly distributing the shade.
Evaluate the result and decide if you need to add more coloring.
3. Repeat Steps 1 and 2 until you have the color you want.
 | The longer the frosting sits, the deeper the hue becomes, so don't be surprised when your perfect shade of leaf green gets a little dark. Instead, compensate for the change during the coloring process by going a little easy on the green gel. |
4. Stir your frosting completely so that you don't have white streaks zooming through your perfectly tinted frosting.
If you're using a squeeze gel container of coloring, you can squeeze a few drops into the frosting. However, until you're comfortable with the coloring process, stick with the toothpick method. You'll have more control over your color's outcome that way.
| Don't flavor your frosting and then throw off your cake eaters with a different color. For example, a lemon-flavored frosting should be yellow, not pink, just as an orange-flavored one should be orange and not green. People expect certain colors to taste a certain way, and mixing up colors and flavors distracts them from taking in the full beauty and impressiveness of your brilliant creation! |
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