how to make red icing - one of the hardest colours to make! - upstate design studio (2024)

OKAY. Red icing is one of the MOST DIFFICULT colours to make. Am I right or am I right??

It’s more likely to turn out a weird pink or a brown/burgundy colour that isn’t appealing at all. Also why does the colour red taste bad when you use too much?? WHY is this colour such a challenge?! With some research, time and patience I figured out a trick and now I’m here to share it with you. Experienced any of the scenarios above? Keep reading for my tips on how to make red icing!

Learning how to make red icing was probably up there on the list of baking tricks that were hard to figure out. I’m the type of person who does a bunch of research before I baking something new so that it’s more likely to be a success. Red icing is something that I kept having to work at over and over again – which can be increasingly frustrating and hard on the ego ! Especially if you are a 3 on the Enneagram like I am!

Whether it’s Valentine’s Day, Canada Day, the 4th of July or Christmas – this recipe will work great! Once you achieve the red quickly you can tint a little deeper if needed.

Keep reading for how to make red icing !

A few things to keep in mind when making red icing (or any deep colour):

1. Make it ahead. I suggest 6-24 hours for best results, which allows the colour to set and will help if you have ever experienced bleeding of colours into one another when cookie decorating.
2. Less is more when it comes to food colouring; especially with reds and pinks! They can have a bitter taste if you use too much and you wouldn’t want your baking to be ruined just because of this. If you follow tip #1 then you will realize you don’t need as much.
3. Use concentrated gel food colouring as a base. You don’t need as much to get a rich colour and when I discovered these it completely transformed the colours I was able to create! (see above image – I used wilton for this recipe as it is easily accessible).

See Also

Ultimate Guide To Royal Icing (with Meringue Powder)

A few things I learned along the way:

• If you just start with white icing and use red food colouring it will likely turn out to be pink. Eventually you may achieve red but you will probably end up using too much and it will taste bad.
• If you add brown to get it darker, it turns into a strange colour you can’t come back from. If you add black to make it darker it will turn green.
• You really should make ahead and let the colours set into the icing

How I make my red icing:

1. Make your icing of choice. Need a basic icing that you don’t need to pipe ? Check out my recipe for easy vanilla icing here.
2. The first picture below shows the colour steps I take to get it to red. Basically I make it pink first, then add a bit of red at the end. Start with white and add basic pink gel food colouring and mix.
3. Add concentrated pink gel food colouring and mix.
4. Then when it is a medium pink, I add 1-2 drops of concentrated red gel colouring depending on how much icing you are making. I would add one at a time and mix if you are not sure.
5. This gets a deep magenta colour and then I add 1-2 drops of Crimson concentrated gel colouring to make it a bit more red.

Mastered red icing or any other difficult colour? Share your baking on socials and tag me@bakingwith.allyand use#bakingwithallyso I can check it out!

Incase you missed these delicious recipes:

easy FUNfetti sheet cake

strawberry rhubarb crisp you can make in 10 minutes!