Can you colour ready made icing?

[bunjies]

I want to put a layer of the smooth type icing on my dd's birthday cake but you can only buy it in white. Can I add food colouring to it and then knead it to mix it in? Does this work or will it go all streaky?

If you mean the icing you roll out, you can buy it in various colours. Julian Graves usually stocks quite a few .

I've coloured the white icing with powder food colouring before now but I'm not sure about the liquid colouring. I would imagine it might be a bit messy and you would need plastic gloves to avoid dying your hands!

You can add liquid food colouring to the roll out icing BUT you do need to be careful about what strength of colour you are going for. Anything pale and pastely will be fine but if you want really strong bold colours (or black) you would be much better off buying a pack of pre coloured icing. If you add too much liquid colouring to the sugarpaste it will go all sticky and gacky.

You can buy gel colours from Hobby craft and Lakeland (I think).

Thanks for the replies. Unfortunately we don't have a Julian Graves shop nearby.

I was thinking of a pale pink colour. I've already got some gel colour. Am I right in thinking you just knead it in?

Yup, just knead it in, but not like bread, you don't want it full of air bubbles.

I recommend the Lakeland ones but you only need a TINY amount.
DH is still pink from the weekend...!

Thanks. Now all I need is a foolproof recipe for a birthday cake sponge.

It depends if you want to produce a cake that is going to look nice iced, get put in a party bag and then thrown out when the guest gets home, or do you actually want one that is nice and tasty, and will actually get eaten (and enjoyed).
I can't help you with the former, but the standard Madeira I use is 2oz SR flour, 1oz Plain flour, 2oz sugar, 2oz butter, 1tsp lemon juice and the zest of 1/2 lemon for each 15sq inches of cake (makes about 2 1/2 inches deep). So for a 9 inch round cake, multiply mix by 4.
Gas 3 (160 degC) for 45 - 50 mins.
You could substitute Orange for Lemon.

you can get loads of different colours of ready to roll icing, the bolder colours are better bought unless you have loads of time for the icing to rest after you have kneeded the colour in as someone has already said it goes quite sticky if you put lots of colour in quickly.

have you got a sugarcraft shop or cake decorators shop near you?

ooh and make sure you stick the icing to the cake with a layer of buttercream, it keeps the cake moist and allows the icing to be smooth as it isn't against the cake crumb.

Ref. Silverwoodhelpdesk above:
I forgot......one egg (a bit dry otherwise)!

A really good tip that I always use is to bake the cake and cover with a layer of buttercream and then freeze it - you can then cover with icing without the cake moving around!

Definitely the latter SWHD - thank you for the recipe and I won't forget the egg! Can it all be mixed at once or do you have to cream the butter & sugar first then add the egg and flour?