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Colouring Pastes

When colouring paste with concentrated food colours it is very difficult to judge exactly how much colour to put in and over-colour your paste. Whatever paste you are using whether sugarpaste (fondant) for covering a cake, Mexican paste for modelling or for motifs such as Patchwork cutters, or marzipan the following technique works equally well.

Anyone who has tried to match a colour at a later date will know how difficult that can be as paste colours change as they dry out>

In this demonstration I will show you how to I will show a method that allows you to make the same colour every time you need to.

Great for when you decorate over a number of days or weeks and want to ensure that your colour remains constant.

Start with a small piece of paste and knead well to ensure that it is smooth.

Using a toothpick or scriber dip into the paste colour and add to the paste.

A concentrated paste colour such as Sugarflair Spectral Paste is always the best option rather than liquid or powder as it is highly concentrated and doesn't leave specks of colour in the paste.

Knead the colouring through the paste. Try not to 'fold' the paste as when you make dough as this will incorporate air. Instead just push together the paste.

To check the colouring is even roll the paste into a ball and cut in half with a sharp knife. If it is fully incorporated the inside colour should be completely uniform. If there is any marbelling streaks knead it for a bit longer!

weigh out the uncoloured paste you require and add small measured amounts of the coloured paste to the bulk of your paste until the required colour is achieved. By making a note of the amount of dark paste you need in relation to the larger quantity of paste you are able to repeat the colour exactly by using the same proportions of the two pastes again.

This is particularly useful when you are making something that takes several days to complete and you need to keep mixing colours or if you want to repeat a design exactly.

By doing it this way you maintain consistency in your colours.

It also means that when you want to put a darker or lighter shade of the same colour you can easily work out how much you need.

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