How to get a vibrant red?

Vibrant shades of red are especially desirable in case of Christmas decorations or Valentines/Mother's Day designs. Unlike the black icing, when you can stop at dark gray, you'd like to achieve exactly the tone you are looking for.

While this section refers to red, you might face similar issues while preparing other deep colors like dark purple or green.

Problems with red color

Red is a very challenging icing color.

This happens because if you want to achieve a rich, vibrant shade (for your Santa cookies, for example), you need to add a lot of food coloring.

What happens if you add to much of dye?

  1. Your icing dries very slowly or not at all. Too much food coloring makes your icing oversaturated and slows down the hardening process. The texture of dried red royal icing with too much dye is crumbly and a bit soft when touched. It won't dry completely hard even after the whole night in a dehydrator.
  2. It tastes bad. Adding too much food coloring gives the icing an odd, metallic taste, and even lemon juice or an artificial flavor won't mask it (or can even make things worse). The bitterness is detectable in freshly prepared icing as well as after drying (if it dries at all). This side effect is less than desirable, especially if your cookies are going to be eaten by children.

How to avoid said problems and achieve a deep tone?

  • Use gel food coloring, because it is active without adding any moisture to the icing (no changes in consistency). Start with just a drop or two (you can use a toothpick or a knife tip) and add more as you go; stir between adding more drops. Stop before you reach desired color (when your icing is pale red, in this case).

  • Cover your icing tightly with a plastic food wrap, put it into refrigerator and allow the color to develop for at least 12 hours. The color of the icing naturally gets darker over time as the color is developing in the icing. Always dye your icing the night before for the best success.

The bowl rule

  • If the freshly dyed icing has the exact color you want to achieve, it means you've added too much dye! The color will continue to darken as you store it, decorate with it and dry. Your icing should be shade or two lighter in the bowl than you ultimately want.