cake decorating/sugar paste question

[elibumbum]

DS has his first birthday coming up and I am going to be brave and decorate his cake myself. I can make cakes but have never used sugar paste to decorate them before! I'm very confused about colour pastes. Can you mix them into ready made icing? If I bought some ready mixed coloured sugar paste icing could I make it lighter by mixing it with ready made white sugar paste?

You can colour the white stuff - the paste colourings work better than the liquids - but it takes some working to get it even. Online you can order all sorts of shades whereas the supermarkets are more limited.

Could I chuck it in the kitchen aid with the dough hook to mix it in?

Think it would go too sticky so be impossible to roll out again.

Thanks LIZS. Think I will stick to the ready mixed colours. Although I need a little bit of grey so I'll have to colour that myself - guess I should just use a tiny bit of black colour paste and work it in to some white ready made stuff? Do you just knead it in?

yes that's how I do it. I also put it inside a freezer bag to stop it staining my fingers , at least until it is at the stage to just keep rolling it to blend!