Dying white fondant icing purple

[Electryone]

Hi, Ive always used ready coloured fondant icing to cover my cakes as its a fairly large surface area and only used the pastes to dye small amounts. But I cant find the right shade of purple I need and might have to use a violet paste, but it strikes me dying 1kg of white icing will be a very messy and not necessarily successful procedure. Has anyone any experience?

It can be done but it takes ages! Prepare for a bad case of Cakemaker's Wrist!

Yes it can be done, 1k is not too bad! Knead all your icing til soft, cover so it doesn't dry out, colour a handful very dark and knead into the rest, repeat until it's as dark as you want.

Thanks both of you! Not sure now..I can find 2 shades only, which arent quite right, its for the colours of an ice hockey team! I can see why it might get sore!

I just take the 1kg icing out of the pack, prick it with a cocktail stick that has some of the colour on it, and then knead until soft. It takes a wee while but its not difficult.

If u need quite a light shade, start off with a small bit of colour, you can usually guess the shade before you have finished kneading, so you can add more if required.

Remember that the colour continues to mature for a while post kneading.

Elect, you will colouring a large amount of sugarpaste is easy and so much better if you use tree and he help not sticking to your hands, I buy 5 kg packs at any one time and always colour it myself.

Oh God grief elect I mean trex not tree, duh!

Trex? Is that the vegetable fat?

Use cornflour to stop it sticking to you.

Trex?

Purple can be adjusted with a tiny bit of blue or red food colour, but don't try and be skin flint and use only the red and blue in your box, they make a nasty muddy purple. Bit like the MN colour gone wrong.

I second the Trex tip, stops it sticking to your hands, plus you can work in some extra glycerine to keep it supple as you are kneading.

Then use cornflour to roll out and you will only need a tiny amount.

I use the sugarflair grape for most shades of purple. Just adjust the amount used to get the right shade.

Also agree with the trex tip.

1kg isnt a large amount to colour tbh. The only colours I buy are red and black. Everything else is done by me. Much easier to get the exact shade.

I second buying black, I've never managed to make it.
Reds easy, it just dyes your hands and the pine table.

Ive actually got that Sugarflair grape violet you mention Mike, just scared of using it! This is the purple Im trying to achieve

Think I will give it a go, I usually buy ready coloured, especially black!

I've never thought of using Trex or cornflour, I bought one of those silicone mats and it was useless, because even with icing sugar on it my icing kept sticking and ripping!

IIRC That's not far off the colour sugar flair grape gives (DH and DD1 pinched mine to use as microscope stain.)

I'd try the grape and just go a bit at a time. It should give you a similar colour. The sugarflair Lavender may give a bit of a brighter purple?*

• I don't work for sugarflair I promise.

Will post the results but it isn't till April, I just like to be prepared!