Anyone decorating a cake for the first time has probably had an experience like this: you gather inspiration, get an idea in your head, and get super excited to bring it to life! Then you realize the colors you were dreaming of aren’t exactly easy to mix.
The color just wouldn’t get dark enough. It wasn’t quite the right hue. Or maybe you were close to getting the right color, but your buttercream suddenly turned into a curdled mess?
If that sounds like you, or if you’re just interested in learning more about buttercream, read on! I want to tell you about three common mistakes that will prevent you from mixing the colors you want, and how to fix them.
The three common mistakes people usually make are using the wrong kind of food coloring, not leaving time for their colors to develop, and not using basic principles of color theory.
1. You’re Using the Wrong Kind of Food Coloring
If you’re aiming for a very bright, intense, or dark-colored buttercream, you should use gel food coloring. What exactly is gel food coloring? Gel food colors are concentrated artificial dyes, and they are usually water-based. They also usually include things like sugars, starches, or glycerin create a thicker “gel” texture.
Gel food colorings are very concentrated, as opposed to liquid food colorings, which are much more diluted. Bigger grocery stores commonly carry liquid food colorings, but gel food coloring is becoming more commonly available. You might see it called soft gel, liquid gel, or gel paste.
So why doesn’t liquid food coloring work? While liquid colors work well enough for adding a little bit of color, they’re just not concentrated enough to create very bright or dark buttercream colors. Using liquid food coloring will limit you to making very light or pastel colors.
Liquid food coloring can also cause problems with buttercream consistency. If you continue adding liquid in hopes of getting a more saturated color, you will thin out the consistency of your frosting. Too much liquid can even cause your buttercream to curdle.
On the other hand, gel colors are super concentrated. One tiny drop of gel will give you a ton of color. So naturally if you’re going for a really bright or dark color, gel colors will work better. You’ll be able to add more color with less overall food coloring. Gel colors are also available in a wider range of hues, making it easier to mix up specific colors.
2. You’re Not Waiting for Colors to Develop
I’m not a scientist, so the following might not be the most accurate description. But food colors tend to develop over time. Have you ever noticed that paint looks a little darker once it dries? Well, a similar sort of thing happens when coloring buttercream.
So how do you actually use this information to your advantage? If you want to mix a very bright or dark-colored frosting, add just enough food coloring to get close to the shade your want. Then let the buttercream rest for a few hours and see how the color develops. You might still need to add a bit more coloring, but you’ll see the color darken over time.
The amount of development or change can vary depending on the color. You’ll probably notice the most difference with darker colors, reds, and blacks.
For instance, one drop of blue food coloring might not develop much over time, because it’s a “light” color. But if you add several drops of blue, the buttercream color might change significantly over a few hours, because it’s a “darker” or more saturated color. I think of it like this: the more food coloring you add, the more time the buttercream needs to “absorb” it.
Color Development in Different Types of Buttercream
It’s also important to note that color development will vary between different types of buttercream. American buttercream is by far the easiest to color and to achieve dark colors with. You will notice that colors in American buttercream tend to darken and develop faster.
Swiss meringue buttercream is noticeably harder to color, but the same rules of color development apply. You’ll notice that Swiss Meringue buttercream takes a little longer to absorb colors compared to American buttercream.
As meringue-based buttercreams are my preference, I actually have a few shortcuts for developing those colors. And if you know the right methods, you can achieve any color you want with Swiss meringue buttercream! You’ll find more information about those methods at the end of this post.
3. You Don’t Understand Basic Color Theory
You don’t need to be Picasso, but a basic understanding of color theory will help you immensely when trying to mix specific buttercream colors.
So what is color theory? In really simple terms, color theory describes what colors are, how they relate to each other, and what happens when they mix. If you understand color theory, you’ll avoid basic color mistakes and problems.
For example, I often see questions like this: “I ran out of red food coloring, what colors can I mix to get red?”
Well unfortunately, the answer is that no colors will mix to make red, because red is a primary color! I know this example seems a bit contrived, but basic color problems like this are more common than you might think. And they can be really frustrating!
In order to better mix your own colors, you’ll want to understand the difference between primary and secondary colors. To put it briefly, primary colors are red, yellow, and blue, while secondary colors are purple, orange, and green. Secondary colors are made by mixing primary colors.
You’ll also want to understand how a color can have different undertones. The most practical example of this is how buttercream will always have a yellow undertone from the butter. In other words, your buttercream isn’t white, it’s a whitish color with a yellow undertone. (Pro tip: add a tiny bit of violet food coloring to neutralize that yellow undertone!)
For me, the easiest way to understand different colors and how they mix is to use a color wheel. I love to use the Adobe Color Wheel, which is a free online tool.
Once you understand the basics of color theory, it will be much easier to determine which colors to mix in order to get a certain hue.
How to Color Buttercream Like a Pro
So to recap, do these three things to get the best buttercream colors:
- Use gel food coloring, not liquid
- Let your buttercream rest so that colors develop over time
- Learn the basics of color theory and use them to nail exact colors
Now earlier I mentioned that there are methods to make coloring Swiss meringue buttercream easier. I also mentioned that I use the color wheel to help mix exact colors, but I didn’t go into much detail. If you want to dive deeper into these topics, you can get all that information in my free online course Color Like a Pro.
Color Like a Pro is a mini-course that I put together to explain in detail the science of coloring buttercream and how I apply color theory specifically to buttercream.
The course is divided into two sections. In the first part of the course I go over the science of meringue-based buttercreams and demonstrate the techniques I use to develop my colors faster. In the second part of the course I show you how I use a color wheel to create rough formulas for mixing colors more efficiently.
Click below to get the course for free and learn to color buttercream like a pro!
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