CALLING ALL CAKE BAKERS - I'm making a black cake, will black food colouring stain everyone's teeth?

[MadreInglese]

I'm making a cake for a friend's business launch and it needs to be black to tie in with the company colours

I've made many cakes before but nothing in such a dark colour and I'm suddenly concerned that it'll dye everyone's teeth black who eats a slice

Am I worrying unnecessarily?

Can you not just do the icing in black? Then people can pick it off if they don't want to eat it.

yes sorry I meant the icing will be black, not the sponge!

I don't know the answer. If you have some of the food colouring can you make a sample size batch of the icing and try it yourself?

Do you mean you are putting black food colouring into fondant icing which will then cover the cake?

If so, you really need proper paste to colour the fondant - like this. Food colouring is too weak.

or you can buy ready coloured fondant here

I am making a blue fondant cake and have made a dark green one and it didn't do anything to our teeth.

My friend did some cupcakes with black icing - didn't stain teeth, but it had quite a peculiar effect coming out the other end - vibrant green poo (and it wasn't just me that noticed, several sheepish friends also had the same!).

lol @ green poo

thanks for the links, will look into the colouring paste, not used that before, or ready coloured may be the way to go

I think if you use liquid black it will as you will need loads of it and it will taste horrible! Agree to go for the ready coloured stuff.

ready coloured will probably give a much more even colour than what I could achieve with food colouring or paste anyway, and it will save me staining my hands black!

thanks for the tips

I always wear disposable gloves when colouring fondant.

I tried some bella but my long nails pierced the finger ends, and thicker ones seemed to make me a bit cack-handed with the detailed bits

I made black wheels on our DTs' 2nd birthday Digger cake recently. No teeth staining! I used the black roll out fondant icing.

However I used the gel food dyes to colour some icing for red biscuits (nee-nors :) ) and they stained everyone's tongues.

ooh yes I didn't think about tongues...

Have made black icing for car tyres/trim on cakes, had not problems that I've noticed, although of course that's a smaller amount than you are planning.

I didn't use ready coloured, made the icing and dyed it with the paste. As another poster said, the liquid will water it down too much. If it does get sticky, add a little icing sugar.

Also, it does come off hands easily enough (and work tops etc!) so I don't' think staining teeth will be a problem.

If gloves are a no-no, try wrapping the icing in cling film. I also roll it out this way so I don't' need to add more icing sugar.

I've seen the aftermath of black icing at a kids party - very odd coloured hands & faces and oooh the nappies

However less of a problem at a business thing, I hope?

lol porkchop - hopefully it'll be a little less messy than a kid's party but I'm not sure....

I think I'll go for the ready-coloured fondant and just make it as thin as possible to avoid staining and odd-coloured poo and yacky taste

rolling in cling film - not tried that before, does it not burst?

One sheet above, one below. Rather than wrapped up in it :)

Would definitely use the ready-coloured stuff though. Saves you hours of mixing the paste into it trying to get it black. Can you tell I'm forever traumatised by making Lightening bloody McQueen?

ah of course!

I've had that frustration before trying to make grass-green icing for a golf cake with food colouring and the bloody stuff just wouldn't go any darker

Another vote for ready coloured, I have always used the paste to colour icing but trying to get the black dark enough was a nightmare.