I can imagine you’re knee-deep in your Christmas preparations, so I’ll keep this post brief and just quickly share with you my favorite food paste or gel colorings for creating red, green and brown icing, three main colors you’ll likely need for holiday cookies.
Favorite Red Gel Colors
You’ll need LOTS of red gel coloring to color royal icing red. Here is a post on how I do that. My absolute favorite shade right now is this Rainbow Dust Strawberry. It’s such a pretty red, but does need a bit of Wilton Red Red and Americolor Red Red to deepen it into a Christmassy red. (Please note some of these links are Amazon affiliate links).
Favorite Green Gel Colors
For that classic green, I love love love Americolor Mint Green. If the Amazon link is sold out, you can find it at How Sweet is That?’s shop.
If I want to tone down the brightness of the green, I’ll add a little bit of Rainbow Dust Gooseberry and if I’d like a deeper, darker green, my favorite gel is Americolor Forest Green.
Favorite Brown Gel Colors
I have three favorite brown food gel colorings – Americolor Chocolate Brown and Wilton brown if I’m trying to achieve a warmer shade (Americolor is slightly warmer than Wilton), and for a cooler brown I like Rainbow Dust Brown. I’ll mix the shades together to get variations of brown.
Notes:
- I always color my white icing, white. It gives a brighter look and helps prevent bleeding. I don’t have a favorite white gel coloring brand, I’ve tried various brands and they all work well, however I’m finding that I now go for how it’s packaged. A squeeze bottle is always best, white coloring is messier than all the other colors as it’s generally more of a liquid rather than a paste or gel.
- In case you’re interested, here’s a post on coloring icing black.
- Thanks Bon! Farine Makiko Ikeda for the adorable jacket cutter, to My Cute Doodles for the bear and deer designs and to Miss Kate Cuttables for the poinsettia and skate designs! You can find most of the cutters through the links below:
- If you’re looking for cookie recipes, here are the ones I use.
- Here is my royal icing recipe.
- You can find my complete guide to royal icing and cut out cookies in my shop here.
- This video on outlining and flooding is a good place to start if you’re new to decorating cookies with royal icing. These cookie decorating basics YouTube videos may also be helpful to get you started.
- Here are some tips on decorating with royal icing.
- If you’d like tips on making your icing look puffy, I have a digital download on that here.
Please forgive me for all the photos! I’m still learning lots about photography and was playing around a bit. No need to scroll through all of them of course.
Wishing you a beary Merry Christmas!
xo,
Marian
Lori says
Marian! Once again these are simply perfection & adorable. I am learning so much from your sharing. Gave you ever tried Master Elite powdered colours?
I followed the link to the coat cookie cutter but it is in another language. It is an adorable cutter & your decorated version is inspiring. Where can it be purchased?
Happy planning, baking & decorating! It is the season
Lori
marian says
Hi Lori, thanks! I haven’t tried Master Elite powdered colours, do you like them?
Yes, Bon! Farine is from Japan. She sent me her book and the jacket cutter as a gift, as I have always admired her work. I did ask her in early 2019 if she would sell her cutters, and she wasn’t at the time, but perhaps if you message her (Instagram or Facebook perhaps), she may see there is an interest and may decide to sell them. I’m sorry it’s not more of an immediate solution. Another idea… Before I had the cutter, I tried to make a version of the duffle jacket with a different cookie cutter… You can see it here; https://sweetopia.net/2018/10/nutmeg-sugar-cut-out-cookie-recipe/ . That jacket cutter is from Cheap Cookie Cutters and I’ve linked to it in that post.
Hope that helps and happy baking and decorating to you too! xo
Maria says
I love this collection of cookies, every one is adorable! Very helpful hints to be a successful decorater!
Excellent colors. Thank you for all your great hints,how to!
ML
marian says
Thank you very much, Maria, I appreciate it!
Kyri says
Hi Marian,
I love your work so much! Such beautiful designs and colours. Well done!
And you can never have too many photos
Kyri x
marian says
Hi Kyri,
You are so kind, I do appreciate it that you said I can never have too many photos. 😀 Thanks for your comments! xo
Rose says
Looks great. Thanks for the video and pics.. wondering what tip you use for piping?
marian says
Hi Rose, mainly I’m using PME #1.5, but did use a variety for this set.
Teena says
Hi there! Are these red food colors tasteless? I am having such a hard time with red because by the time I add enough color to the icing, it tastes terrible.
marian says
Hi Teena,
Yes, red can taste bitter if you need to make it a deep shade. You can buy Wiltons’ no-taste red, which isn’t perfectly tasteless but is much better.