Bright red buttercream, how do i get it really red not pink

[baabi]

I am making a Spiderman cake for DS's birthday in a couple of weeks, I want to cover it in butter cream in the right colours. Does anyone have any suggestion how to get it really red as usually it turns out pink or orangy due to the butter colour.
Any suggestions will be appreciated thanks

I have just bought some sugarpaste in red which I think does a better job at colouring icing than the food colouring you get in little bottles. Sugarpaste

if lots and lots of red food colouring doesn't work i would cover it in red icing, tbh. (the stuff you can roll out, no idea what its proper name is)

Don't add too much food colouring, as it tastes awful in large quantities (as I discovered the hard way by making DD1 an Ariel cake with inedible hair for her 5th birthday .

Aparently you can get colouring paste which doesn't have that effect, which is what Sunshine is suggesting.

Personally I'd probably go with ready coloured ready to roll icing rather than buttercream.

I second sugarpaste colouring - it's really strong so you get the colour as advertised and you only need a tiny bit to get the colour too. I got mine in a cake decorating shop.

thank you for all the suggestions, I do have some red icing just in case, but I think I would be easier in buttercream, if I can get the right colour that is. I should be trying the paste, thanks

I used to do lots of coloured buttercream on birthday cakes when DCs were little. When I tried to make it recently it just went pink no matter how much colour I used. I think I used to use old fashioned cochineal. You probably can't buy it now.

My red food colouring has a warning not to use too much of it. And recently I made a bright green fish cake with food colouring which was horrid and made the kids go a bit doolally. So the other stuff is prob better.

you can get little pots of colouring gel which are much, much more intense than the bottled food colouring

you can also buy powdered food dye in cakecraft shops - I have a really bright scarlet one which is pretty good!

As others have suggested, you need the gel colours rather than the liquids. They are much more intense. You will still need a fair bit though - probably about half a pot. Try Real Red or Christmas Red as they are the strongest