Need help with making birthday cake!

Domimom · Senior Member

Need help with making birthday cake!

apies · Guru

1. are you planning on coloring the icing red? if so, i've read that you're better off making a chocolate frosting and tinting that red. if you do white icing and try to make it red, it will just be dark pink. another option is to buy pre-made red icing from a store - sometimes grocery stores will sell it to you or you can buy it at a baking store.

2. i would say no more than 48 hours and it needs to be in the refrigerator - especially b/c it's buttercream icing.

3. yup! and a great tip is to put a box of pudding mix in with the cake mix - if you're making chocolate cake, dump in a box of chocolate instant pudding mix. that's my secret!

Corey · Guru

the one food coloring that will give you a bright red when added to white frosting is the wilton gel coloring in the little tub that they sell at michael's. it is red red red, not pink at all like you get with the cheapy food coloring from the grocery store.

Domimom · Senior Member

Thank you, the icing will be white so I have decided to just do white cake. Thanks for your help! Here is a picture of the one I want to make, we will see how close my turns out to this!

http://www.wilton.com/idea/Fire-Truck-Cake

Corey · Guru

that looks fairly easy.

another idea is to just buy the decorator icing at the grocery store and spread it on over the white frosting rather than tint a big batch of icing all different colors.

apies · Guru

Corey wrote:

the one food coloring that will give you a bright red when added to white frosting is the wilton gel coloring in the little tub that they sell at michael's. it is red red red, not pink at all like you get with the cheapy food coloring from the grocery store.

corey, have you used this?

i bought something once like this but it tasted funky by the time the icing was red.

if this one doesn't taste funky, i'll have to try it.

thanks!

Robin · Guru

apies wrote:

Corey wrote:

the one food coloring that will give you a bright red when added to white frosting is the wilton gel coloring in the little tub that they sell at michael's. it is red red red, not pink at all like you get with the cheapy food coloring from the grocery store.

corey, have you used this?
i bought something once like this but it tasted funky by the time the icing was red.
if this one doesn't taste funky, i'll have to try it.
thanks!

I thought all red frosting was bitter. Never knew why, though.

Cuppycake · Guru

apies wrote:

Corey wrote:

the one food coloring that will give you a bright red when added to white frosting is the wilton gel coloring in the little tub that they sell at michael's. it is red red red, not pink at all like you get with the cheapy food coloring from the grocery store.

corey, have you used this?
i bought something once like this but it tasted funky by the time the icing was red.
if this one doesn't taste funky, i'll have to try it.
thanks!

Did you get their No-Taste Red?

Yes, they make two... And no, it makes no sense, because who in their right mind would want funky tasting red. But, I adore the frig out of Wilton gels. They are all I use.

(and Jasmine, you got great tips - I don't think you are going to have a problem with that cake... there isn't too much detail work, or 8 million hours of using a star tip, so you should be good!)

Corey · Guru

Corey wrote:

apies wrote:

Corey wrote:

the one food coloring that will give you a bright red when added to white frosting is the wilton gel coloring in the little tub that they sell at michael's. it is red red red, not pink at all like you get with the cheapy food coloring from the grocery store.

corey, have you used this?
i bought something once like this but it tasted funky by the time the icing was red.
if this one doesn't taste funky, i'll have to try it.
thanks!

i've used it a bunch of times to make red, white, and blue stuff or red at vday.

i've never noticed a different taste.
also, it literally takes 1-2 drops of coloring to make it bright red (the wilton one).