Weird frosting color question

phira · March 2014

What's everyone's opinions on frosting coloring? We've got a pretty good idea of what kind of cake design we want: 3 tiers with a spackle buttercream finish with loads of buttercream roses everywhere (because hell yeah, frosting). But we both think that looks super boring because there's no color.

I'm not a huge fan of pastels, especially because our wedding is in the evening and I'm wearing a dark blue dress (aka not pastel). But my partner is worried that heavily-dyed frosting will turn people's mouths colors, and my family seems to have a weird genetic ability to taste frosting if a color is too saturated (I'm telling you--if you buy me a cake from the grocery store and it has red frosting, I won't eat it).

What do you all think?

daria24 · March 2014

I don't give a rat's ass what color the cake is. Half the time I don't even see it before it gets cut.

I guess I would vote no color, because:

1. Certain colors would make me think it was a flavor other than vanilla (like green frosting=mint to me) and I would be disappointed to have plain vanilla.

2. Colored frosting makes me think of kids' birthdays and supermarket cake.

But I'd still eat colored frosting because CAKE.

MobKaz · March 2014

I will avoid cakes with any dark coloring because of the dye and what it does do to teeth.

Have you considered using ribbon? My daughter had a white cake, but the baker trimmed it with ribbon for coloring. It looks pretty when on display, and the ribbon is easy to remove just prior to cake cutting. You can add color by putting a small pattern on the cake, or embellish the cake with buttercream or real flowers.

phira · March 2014

@mobkatz Good question. We briefly considered it, thinking the other one might like it, but one of our priorities is that we want the entire cake to be yummy/edible. So no fondant, real flowers, ribbon, etc., save for the topper (which, honestly, we might skip entirely).

emmyg65 · March 2014

I'm another one of those folks who can taste heavily dyeded stuff. Plus, I think food dyeed dark colors is unappetizing. But then, my number one priority for cake is that it taste good. Appearance is a distant second. I like @mobkaz's suggestion to use ribbon and real flowers to add color.

MobKaz · March 2014

You could break the layers of the cake with colored plates. You could also use a lot of texture to make the cake look really nice even if all white, and intersperse with a few darker blue flowers. The flowers would at least be easy to pick off if a guest preferred not to eat the darker dye.

I realize it's not what you want, but using blueberries to add color is a definite win-win!

I think you can see that you don't really have to schmear the bejeezus out of the cake with blue to make it look pretty! A little bit will really break up the white. White on white texture really makes a statement as well, so if you can pair a smattering of navy with texture, the cake will look fabulous!

J9lawrence · March 2014

In my opinion, taste trumps looks - go with lots of white buttercream icing! Nobody remember how my cake looked but they do remember it was the best red velvet cake they ever had!

APDSS22 · March 2014

We went with just a trimming of satin ribbon around the bottom of each layer and a white on white icing texture. Ribbon was removed right before cutting, I thought it looked great. Friends of ours had a cake wrapped in navy blue fondant. The cake was very generic in flavor and the dye turned everyone's mouths dark blue (and tasted awful.) Maybe just a small dot trim around the bottom of each layer in your color that minimizes the dye but breaks up the layers a little bit? Of course, the most important thing is taste!

pumpkinsandturkeys · March 2014

Have you seen the new ombré colour cake trends? They airbrush the colour on so that it gets deeper towards the base of the tier. That could get you the saturated colour you want and visual interest without having heavily-dyed icing all over the cake.

KeptInStitches · March 2014

Taste trumps looks, IMHO.

blabla89 · March 2014

Buttercream roses? Never seen those, now I'm curious.

I think buttercream frosting is a perfectly lovely color by itself, especially if you don't want anything too fancy. I would definitely worry about food coloring staining people's mouths, and I can taste excess food coloring too.

My grandma and I are planning to DIY my cake and I will probably just frost it with plain buttercream and a couple little fresh flowers or other embellishments here and there.

ETA clarity

casey8784 · March 2014

my cake is all pure white, but with a ribbon effect for some detail/contrast. the groom's cake is going to be colorful (fire engine) so we didn't want the cakes to "fight" against each other.

Almost got it with blue frosting, like a gradient from dark blue on the bottom to lighter blue on the top tier, but the baker advised that it would turn everyone's mouths blue, so we nixed that pretty quickly...

phira · March 2014

@TheFutureMrsRohlman22 Using dots might work for sure. Maybe combine that with @pumpkinsandturkey's suggestion. I really like ombre, so that might look really spectacular.

Taste is definitely the most important thing. I think we're going into the cake consultations with the attitude that we'd like to make the cake LOOK nice, but if any of those LOOKS make the cake taste worse, then no thanks.

@casey8784 Yeah, that's one of the major reasons we're reluctant to have colorful frosting. Although a pastel blue might not be a problem, if the color is too dark, everyone's mouths will turn blue.

@lalalaurita Buttercream roses = roses made from buttercream frosting = typical cake decoration.

Example:

casey8784 · March 2014

exactly. I really had my heart set on this one cake that i had seen a picture of (that was made my the bakery that we ended up going with); it took both my mom and FI to talk me into the one we ended up going with. Now, though, I love it and can't wait until October to see it!

have you already chosen a baker, or are you now looking into them?

ilovecake84 · March 2014

From experience (I own a bakery), dark coloured buttercream will dye your mouth. It also has the potential of dying fabric. For the people who want to do the cake smashing into your new spouse's face (seriously, why do people do this), you don't want any of that icing falling on your dress.

Fondant is 100% edible, there's a chance your baker might make their own which tends to be delicious. You could add a fondant ribbon around the base of each tier, add sugar flowers to the cake, you can even have a bride and groom topper modeled out of fondant. Your baker should have lots of suggestions for you

blabla89 · March 2014

@phira I guess I thought that was made from a different type of frosting. Anyway, now I just want to eat ALL the cake.

NavyBlue143 · March 2014

My cake had decorative scrolls made from sugar, dyed black. My cake was red and black. Maybe blue sugar decorations?

RebeccaFlower · March 2014

I hate when my mouth gets colored by frosting.

doeydo · March 2014

Maybe you could use real, nonpoisonus flowers (or even gum paste flowers) to add colour. Examples:

And/or you could add a little coloured frosting detail via piping or something. Examples:

Another option is to add coloured ribbon. Examples:

However, I think you could have the cake without any added colour and the cake could still look great. Examples:

APDSS22 · March 2014

And now I need cake.

HobokensFury · March 2014

Our buttercream flowers were pink and green. It also had pink and green fondant accents to break up the white.

HisGirlFriday13 · March 2014

I'm with Stitches: taste trumps looks.

I do think the ribbon, which would be removed and which wouldn't affect the taste, is a nice touch.

phira · March 2014

@doeydo No joke, that last cake you posted was 100% exactly what I wanted, and my partner HATES that look. So that was out

Thanks for everyone's feedback! We did aaaall of our cake tastings today, and we've already decided which bakery to go with. We're going to keep the base frosting white, with kind of diagonals in the frosting (sort of like the photo), and we'll either have frosting flowers or rolled chocolate flowers all over the cake in different shades of light blue.

You guys ... rolled chocolate is super yummy. Two of the bakeries we looked at use rolled chocolate in place of fondant. Highly recommend.

KeptInStitches · March 2014

Mmm ... rolled chocolate ...

Good pick!

phira · March 2014

@KeptInStitches We were so surprised. I'd printed a couple of pictures of cakes we liked for the first place we went, and I was showing the consultant the pictures, and I asked what the really cool flowers were made of (since it looked like fondant). She immediately got excited and said, oh, we don't even use fondant because almost everyone dislikes it, it's actually CHOCOLATE. And then my super awesome maid of honor, who seriously saved the day in so many ways today, thought to ask if we could try some. And it was so yummy. The second place we went did fondant and not rolled chocolate, so we didn't bring up the cool flowers, but the third place (the place we're picking) also does rolled chocolate instead of fondant. So we might shell out the extra $$$ for it because dayum.

Weird frosting color question

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