Colouring Buttercream

Buttercream naturally has a yellow hue to it and will affect the final colour when tinting. Adding a very small amount of violet gel colour to the buttercream – a swipe of a toothpick dipped into the gel colour is usually enough – before adding the colour you wish to tint it will give a whiter base allowing a truer colour to be achieved.

The buttercream in the bottom right of this pic resulted when adding rose pink to the natural-coloured buttercream above it, while the one in the bottom left with a 'brighter' tone was based on the buttercream above it which had a little violet colour added first.