How to Make Black Icing at Home

Unfortunately, making pure black icing at home is actually not that easy, but you can get some nice color results if you follow the instructions in this post.

If you’ve ever seen pure black icing on a cake, it was likely purchased as ready-made icing from the store. Generally, that means you have to sacrifice taste and who knows what they’re putting in it to achieve that color. Not that I’m claiming that this icing is the picture of healthiness, but at least you can ensure you get better taste and quality. 😉

You Will Need:

• Chocolate frosting
• Black food coloring gel

How to Do It:

Start with a chocolate frosting. You can use Melissa’s basic white icing recipe here. Just add 3/4 cup of cacao and about a tablespoon of water. If shortening isn’t your favorite (it’s not mine either), you can use butter instead. Or half butter or shortening if you want a frosting that is easier to work with and will keep it’s shape.

Using a toothpick, add some black food coloring gel until you get the desired color. It won’t be pure black, but you can get a nice shade of very dark grey.

Mix it until you get the shade you are looking for. Here is an example of my cake iced with my “black” icing.