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I'm going to share my most useful hacks for tinting frosting for tricky colours like black, red and navy
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Black frosting is the most common struggle so let's start with that
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There are two secret ingredients here, chocolate chips and cocoa powder. Put the chocolate chips
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in the microwave for 30 seconds at 70% power so they don't overheat and seize and then stir the
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chocolate until it's smooth with no lumps. Leave it to cool to room temperature. Meanwhile add hot
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water to the cocoa powder a little bit at a time until it makes a thin paste with no lumps
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I use about two tablespoons of cocoa powder and one tablespoon of water for every cup of
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buttercream. When the chocolate and cocoa mixture are at room temperature, add them to your frosting
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I like to do this before adding the milk or cream in my 4 Minute Buttercream recipe so that the
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buttercream is much stiffer than it would normally be because the liquid cocoa powder and melted
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chocolate will thin out the buttercream a lot, making it silky smooth and easy to spread or pipe
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If you've already added milk or cream then the chocolate and cocoa powder might make the
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buttercream too runny. Now add black food colouring and I definitely recommend gel colours over liquid
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colours because they're much more concentrated. I buy little bottles of coloured gels but for black
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I use bigger bottles since you need so much more gel. You'll need a generous squirt of gel but not
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nearly as much as you'd need if you were using liquid colours. Stir it in and you're aiming for a
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colour that's darker than grey but not yet a true jet black. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and
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leave it for an hour for the colour to develop and darken and ta-da! A true black buttercream frosting
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These first two hacks will work for any dark colour of buttercream like navy blue. Start by
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adding chocolate to your frosting, ideally melted chocolate and cocoa powder but you can use one or
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the other if you don't have both. The darker the brown you start with, the less colour you'll need
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to add later. Adding just blue to brown will make a fairly dark blue but to make navy, add some black
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as well. Go back and forth between blue and black, adding a bit at a time until the colour is almost
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as dark as you want it to be. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap, leave it for an hour and voila
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A beautiful deep navy buttercream! If you're struggling to achieve the colour shown on a
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bottle of gel it's probably because you're not using enough gel. Gels are concentrated but you
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do need to use a generous amount for really bright and bold colours. Covering the bowl and letting the
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frosting rest gives any gel colour a chance to develop. Look at the difference just one hour
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makes for this orange buttercream. Red frosting can be really tricky but just like with any other
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colour, use a good amount of red gel and then you can make the red frosting brighter by covering the
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bowl to let it rest for an hour. Another hack that works really well with red buttercream is to heat
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it. Scoop up no more than a third of the buttercream and microwave it for just 10 seconds. It will melt
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and get much darker. Add the melted buttercream to the rest of the red buttercream and mix it
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together and it will look lumpy at first but leave it to come to room temperature or speed up the
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process by putting it in the freezer for five minutes to make a beautiful deep red frosting
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that's silky smooth. A common question is how to avoid the bitter taste caused by using lots of gel
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As well as limiting the amount of gel you use by using these methods, another hack is to add more
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flavour to coloured frosting. Add a bit of clear vanilla or almond extract or even other flavours
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like lemon or mint, depending on the flavour of your cake of course. The flavour will disguise any
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taste of the gel in the buttercream. All I taste in this bright red cake is the almond flavoured
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red frosting and my deliciously moist perfect chocolate cake and yummy oreo filling. I hope
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this tutorial has been useful. I share everything I know about buttercream in my online master course
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The Basics of Buttercream, where you'll learn how to make buttercream, troubleshoot any issues like
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graininess, air bubbles, yellow buttercream and also how to check and adjust the consistency for
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piping and frosting, how to frost a cake with super smooth frosting and sharp edges, how to
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store buttercream and how to use it for lots of stunning unique cake decorating techniques
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To take the master course on my cake school, click the link up here in the top of the screen
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or go to britishgirlbakes.com. Thank you for watching
