5 Best Food Colorings For Royal Icing Of 2023
Royal icing is easy to make, and aside from being delicious, it can help to add some stunning color to a cake or other baked goods!
While royal icing is considered fairly easy to whip up, you have to be mindful of the ingredients you use, to ensure that it maintains the right consistency. One mistake people make is adding the wrong food coloring to royal icing.
Which is the best food coloring for royal icing? The best food coloring for royal icing is a soft get paste coloring. Gel-based food colors will not change the consistency of the royal icing and are usually highly pigmented, so a small amount of the food coloring is all that is needed to give the icing a dark, rich color.
When purchasing food coloring to use, it is a good idea to buy a complete set with different colors, instead of having different brands and types of food coloring at home. This helps with consistency, and you will know exactly what to expect when using food coloring.
The Best Gel-Based Food Colors For Royal Icing
Below are the best sets of gel food coloring that are great to use for royal icing. The sets should contain all the colors you need to decorate your heart away, or you could mix the colors up for more unique shades.
| Rank | Food Coloring | Number Of Colors |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Wilton Gel-Based Icing Colors | 12 |
| 2. | Bakerpan Food Coloring Gel | 7 |
| 3. | Chefmaster Food Coloring Gel | 12 |
| 4. | AmeriColor Soft Gel Coloring Paste | 8 |
| 5. | McCormick Assorted Food Colors | 4 |
1. Wilton Gel-Based Icing Colors
The 12 pack of gel-based food colors from Wilton can be used to color royal icing without changing the consistency of the icing at all.
There are more than enough colors included in the pack, including green, violet, pink, brown, yellow, black, red, royal blue, golden yellow, burgundy, teal, and copper.
Each color is kept in a 0.5-ounce jar with an easy-open lid.
All the gel-based food colorings are certified Kosher and made in the USA. The colors can be used on their own or mixed together to create some beautifully customized shades. They are perfect for beginner and expert bakers alike.
To use the gel-based food coloring, you need to dip a toothpick into the food coloring, and then into your royal icing. You can use more to darken the hue, but a little does go a long way, and while the tubs are small, they will last a long time in your kitchen.
This is the ideal set to use for your baking and to give your royal icing gorgeous color without changing the consistency at all.
2. Bakerpan Food Coloring Gel
The formulation of the gel-based food coloring used in this Bakerpan set results in deep and vibrant colors, giving your royal icing the right color without thinning it out at all.
There are 7 colors included in the Bakerpan kit, these include super red, royal blue, lemon yellow, leaf green, orange, violet, and black. All of these colors are stunning on their own, but you can mix them together to create your own shades.
The professional strength formulation gives deep and rich colors to royal icing, and other food items, with only the smallest amount of the gel food coloring being used.
The 1 oz tubs will last an incredibly long time in the kitchen.
Compared to liquid food coloring, the gel-based colors produce the most pigmented and bright colors, with considerably less product being used. This not only means that the food coloring lasts longer, but that the consistency of your icing remains exactly how you want it to.
The whole set provides nearly every color you would need when baking, and if not, you can whip up your own color by mixing two or more together, and get decorating!
3. Chefmaster Food Coloring Gel
Liqua-gel colors are highly concentrated edible cake colors used for cake decorating.
They are the perfect colorants to use for royal icing, giving it a bright color with only a tiny amount of the liqua-gel needing to be used.
The colors are easy to mix and when added to the royal icing, they disperse instantly. The gels are contained in squeeze bottles that have flip-top lids, so you can add one drop at a time.
This allows you to count the number of drops you use, and then repeat the same color time and time again.
Formulated for use with whipped toppings, buttercreme icings, cake batter, cookie dough, fondant, and royal icing, it is a great set to keep close by for baking.
All the colors are made within the USA and contain only the highest quality ingredients. They are all certified Kosher as well.
You can choose between the 12 pack of primary colors or the 12 pack of secondary colors. If you really wanted to have a complete gel-food coloring kit, you could keep both in the kitchen!
4. AmeriColor Soft Gel Coloring Paste
The tinting strength of the AmeriColor Soft Gel Paste colors is superior to many other food coloring options, and the gel pastes will not separate, tear, or harden when mixed in with royal icing.
It keeps the royal icing at exactly the right consistency, while still offering vibrant, rich colors that are often not achievable with liquid food colorings.
This junior kit includes red, dark pink, violet, sky blue, lemon yellow, leaf green, orange, and chocolate brown.
These gel-cream colors contain base ingredients that allow the colors to disperse immediately, so you need the tiniest amount for the brightest colors.
The gel paste colorings are kept in convenient squeeze bottles, with flip-top lids. This keeps the contents safe and protected from drying out, and also allows you to add the food coloring in one drop at a time, so you can achieve the same beautiful colors again.
All the colors in the set can be mixed with one another to form your own unique shades, and this can easily be measured and repeated by counting the amounts of drops used, made easy by the squeeze bottle.
The gel paste colors will not turn the royal icing runny, and they will not separate, tear or harden in the icing, instead, they offer some stunning colors that will make your baked goods stand out!
5. McCormick Assorted Food Colors
The McCormick set of assorted food colors is a great kit to keep in the kitchen for any time you need to add some bright colors to your food.
This particular pack contains the colors red, yellow, green, and blue, all of which can be mixed together to form other shades and tones.
There are also neon colors available which can really bring vivid colors to your royal icing!
The drop-control vials are incredibly easy to use and help you to measure and repeat the same colors over and over again.
Not only are the colors great to use for royal icing and other baked goods, but they are also perfect to use for arts and crafts, and to make kids items such as DIY slime and Kinect sand!
This is a simple, yet effective kit for home, and offers possibly some of the easiest to use bottles when it comes to adding the colors into the icing.
A tiny bit of the icing goes a long way, and you will be able to use the coloring kit for endless baking and icing projects!
Related Questions
How do you add food coloring to royal icing?
To add food coloring to royal icing, you should use gel-based colors and add the desired color one drop at a time into the food coloring. Add in however many drops you need, and stir the royal icing until the color is evenly distributed and the icing is smooth.
If the icing isn’t the right color, you can go in and add more food coloring, but do so slowly as the color can turn too dark quickly, and you would then have to make more royal icing to lighten it.
How do you make gray royal icing?
Making gray food coloring is not so easy! In order to make a gorgeous gray good coloring, you should add one drop of blue coloring to one drop of black coloring. Add this mixture to your royal icing and mix to see whether or not it is the right color.
For around two cups of royal icing, you would need three drops of blue food coloring, and three drops of black food coloring. This should give you a medium-tone gray, which can be darkened depending on the shade you are wanting.
Does royal icing dry darker?
Royal icing does tend to dry darker, so you do need to take this into consideration when choosing the color you want to ice the cake.
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