Liquid vs Gel vs Oil food coloring [ Cake Decorating For Beginners ] 

I always use liqua gel colors for my frostings(buttercreams), gumpaste, fondant, roya, macaron and meringues. I use the oil based colors when doing work with candy like isomalt. Chocolate depends a bit on what I'm doing but I usually end up using oil based colors for that as well. Hope this helps!

you are very welcome so glad you found it helpful!

I've used liqua gel colors with bother cream cheese frosting and stabilized whipped cream. I would assume it would work for a whipped mascarpone but I've never tried it. The key for me for a delicate frostings that can be over whipped and mixed like stabilized whipped cream is to mix the color in while you are whipping it up. I like the liqua gels since they are fluid enough to incorporate easily while also being intense enough to make dark and bright colors as well as pastels. hope this helps!

@@CakeDecoratingSchool Thank you, I appreciate your time. I belive that is what I've used in the past but wanted to make sure one of the others wouldn't have been a better. choice. something

so glad you liked it!

I have been using chefmaster colors for almost 20 years they are really awesome and perform really well. I've also used americolor as well and always liked their products. I believe the link for this video goes to a set of chefmaster liqua gel colors. hope this helps!

@@CakeDecoratingSchool Absolutely, I really appreciate your feedback. I'll purchase some and try them. Thank you. 😀

@@CakeDecoratingSchool Absolutely. Just in time to cancel my orders for other products! LOL. Thank you.

you are very welcome and I hope they work well for you too!

usually I would go with either liqua gel or gel paste colorings for fondant so as not to affect the consistency. Liqua gels are great for a range of shades and I usually go with the gel paste for very dark colors like black and deep reds. hope this helps.

Hi! Such a great question! I tend to use liqua gel colors(sounds like coulor mills equivalent of their aqua colors). They are great for a variety of tasks like coloring simple buttercreams, royal icing for cookies, macaron, cake batters and more. I have used both the products you are talking about. Both brands work really well and make the liqua gel colors perfect for using in high fat buttercreams. I keep a nice stock of the chefmaster(candy-flo) one on hand so I have it anytime I need. Since the colorings are water based I don't think you would be able to use them for chocolates or things like hard candy/sugar show pieces where you might have to worry about crystalizing or seizing, as long as you aren't planning on doing things of that nature you should be good for most applications with a set of liqua gels(aquas) plus either the candy Flo or Flo coat. That is actually the set up I use since it's very versatile and I don't do a lot of work with chocolates or sugar work. Hope this helps!

I have used them at ties. I prefer the liquids but the powders can be nice for various projects. Thanks for the suggestion!

okay thanks!

we have many videos for cake that include color mixing sections. If you are making cookies(biscuits?) and you want to color the frosting for decorating I use liqua gel colors. I have also used them for coloring the actual dough. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the sub! and welcome!

thanks so glad you found us!

I've never tried using the oil colors for cookie dough. I would assume it should work but I've never tried using it for that purpose. I have used both liqua gels and gel pastes on cookie dough with great success.

we use chefmasterers liqua gel color for our red velvet and I like either the red red or super red color

reds scan be hard to make. Whipped cream isn't going to be the easies thing to color and work wit, I typically don't plan on using dark colors when I'm making colored whipped cream. If you want red you're going to need something concentrated like a liqua gel, I would go with red red or super red. I would also color it and then wait for the color to develop and then whip it. That way you can over whip it while you are mixing in the color. Reds take time to reach there full color with buttercreams I typically stop when I get to a very dark pink that almost starts to look like it could be red and that will typically develop into a nice vibrant shade of red.

@@CakeDecoratingSchool Thank you so much for this information, I recently started to bake small pasteries like marshmallows or something to have ontop of my morning coffee and coloring the eggwhites is such a pain so I will try your amazing tips and see if I can get it too work

Hmmm. We will keep that in mind if we see one that we like.

the get colors will work for coloring water. Just keep in mind that food coloring can color skin just like it does teeth and tongues when you eat something with coloring it in and it may take some time and a few washes to go away..

I usually use liqua gel colors when I'm making colored whip cream.

I'm not totally sure what sundae mix is but I'm intrigued by it. I'll have to google that later. the darker colors of food coloring will always stain. Lips teeth, tongue are all possible. It usually goes away pretty quickly just by drinking or eating other things or you can just brush your teeth after eating your treat and that usually helps. But there isn't any way to prevent it from happening and you'll notice it more with the dark colors. Cheers!

@@CakeDecoratingSchool i see thankyou! Appreciate your help

Hi minerva, The sets we showed in the video are unfortunately discontinued. But there is a link for similar items in the description. If you are new to decorating I recommend trying Liqua Gel colors since they can be used for lots of types of cake and baking projects. Candy Oils are for making hard candy and can be used for color chocolates and high fat buttercreams and might bot be best if you are just planning on doing some cake decorating and making baked goods. I'm not sure what you mean by vegetable food coloring. Some people do make their own food coloring from vegetables and there are some all natural colorings that you can buy as liqua gels. You find all of these items online on amazon and many of them at craft stores and cake supply shops.

this is a great question. If the fat content is a problem in the recipe you can try the oil based coloring for candies as it should mix in better with out leaving little beads of the color to settle. There are also powdered colors that are great for high fat buttercreams and might also be worth a try. Just keep in mind that the titanium dioxide has a tendency to settle, think of how much you have to shake a bottle if it's been sitting for a bit. It behaves a little differently than other colorings because of what it's made from. So if it were me I would want to mix i in an early stage(not sure what method you are using so just going to give a few suggestions). Like if you are creaming I would add it into the butter and sugar , or stir it into my liquids so that I can make sure it's well dissolved and distributed. Then I would make sure it's going straight into pans and into the oven right away so it doesn't have time to settle. I have a lovely lemon blueberry cake that if I don't bake right away and it waits in the queue for more than a few minutes will end up with a layer of blueberries at the bottom every time. I've never tried the liquid whitener in a baked cake(only cookies and frostings) so it could also just be that heating up a loose batter allows it to fall out of solution, there might not be anything you can do to keep that from happening to some degree. I hope this helps and good luck with your project!

@@CakeDecoratingSchool Hello, and thank you for responding so quickly! Yes... I think I will give the powdered format a try and use it in the creaming part of the recipe as well as maybe also try the oil-based whitener as well. Thank you so much again!!

@@badkat68 you are very welcome. that sounds like a good plan. I think the powders are available in water soluble and fat soluble options as well just like the liquids. Adding it in the creaming stage would be what I would try if it was me. Hope it goes well!

Hi I use liqua gel colors for adding colors to both cake and custards(puddings can refer to different things based on where you are from) and they work well for both. You only need the oils if you are doing things like making candy or some other specialized tasks. A good set of liqua gel colors should allow you to color cookies, frostings, meringues cakes and a variety of other sweets like custards as well.

@@CakeDecoratingSchool : I have both the gel base and water base food colors in stock at home but was not sure which one to use... I'm really glad to get your reply... Thank you so much!!...

the brand in the video is nomeca, it should come up if you google nomeca food coloring and it is available on amazon. If you can't find that brand where you are chef master also makes candy colors that are suitable for use in chocolate. Many brands of food coloring will impart some taste if you are using a lot so sometimes it means sticking to a range of light to medium shades to avoid that problem. hope this helps and good luck with the cake pops!

Thanks for the info! I’m sure it will help a lot

Also, can the the oil colors be used in gelatin?

The surprising answer to this is yes. There are two companies I know of that make this kind of product. Chefmaster brand is called candy Flo and americolor calls it Flo-coat. you mix it with your liqua gel colors and it will then let you use them with chocolate, candy or what I use it for, coloring my high fat buttercreams like Swiss meringue( we actually have a video about this ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-U18XrfwuBBU.html).

we do not make these products so we don't ship anything. They and many other similar brands are available on amazon. I would recommend trying cake/baking supply shops in your area or that do ship to your area if you are interested in buying some food colorings.

@@CakeDecoratingSchool Tysm pls do guide us

I have used liqua gel colors to color stabilized whip cream, I usually mix the coloring into the cold cream before whipping so I'm not over mixing it by blending in the color after it's whipped.

@@CakeDecoratingSchool That's so smart! I'll have to do that!

Hi Latisha, I'm not sure if you can use them for this purpose without possibly having some issues. You might want to check in with some channels that focus on making those items and see what colorings they use. Good coloring can stain skin, fabrics and countertops, sinks and tubs so I could see it being an issue if used in those types of products. Hope this helps and good luck with your projects!

Thank you really appreciate your feedback 💜💜💜

I've done that with liquid airbrush color( it is meant to set up and dry out on the surface of frostings). and also with royal icing on fondant.