Paste / Gel Icing Colouring

?Cake Stuff are delighted to recommend Sugarflair "Spectral" concentrated icing paste colourings . . . they are, in our honest opinion, some of the best icing colours you can buy today. Many, many times more concentrated than supermarket icing colourings, these professional paste colours (also called gels) go a very long way and one 25g pot could easily last months or even years.

Paste and gel icing / food colouring is designed for use in sugarpaste ready to roll icing, flower and modelling paste, marzipan, sponge cake, buttercream, royal icing, fondant and many more applications - the highly concentrated gel paste does not alter the consistency of icing and a little goes a long way!

Within the Sugarflair icing colour range you will find "Tartranil" icing paste colourings - specific popular shades without any added tartrazine, an additive linked to hyperactivity in some children. Tartrazine was, historically, always required to produce these particular shades. Sugarflair icing paste colourings are now probably the safest / healthiest in the world.

Sugarflair have added several new shades recently, including the new Pastel range.? If you're not familiar with this range please allow us to explain - the colours themselves are not paler but have been formulated in such a way that when used in small amounts the colour stays true, so a tiny amount of Daffodil Yellow will stay a true (pastel) yellow and not move towards shades on either side (eg green or orange) as can sometimes happen with other icing colourings.

You will also find Sugarflair "Extra" maximum strength icing paste colourings - the 3 most popular colours, offering the busier cake decorator the ultimate in concentrated colour, and in larger 42g pots for unbeatable value. Cake Stuff also stock a selection of Sugarflair paste icing colourings in large 400g bulk trade pots.

Cake Stuff also recommends Wilton and Ateco concentrated paste / gel icing colors as these offer additional shades not easily found in the UK.

Icing paste colourings can be used by adding a tiny amount to sugarpaste, marzipan, royal icing or buttercream (and by "tiny" we mean literally dipping the end of cocktail stick in the paste as this allows you to build up to the required shade), or diluting with a little water or Rejuvenator Fluid / Spirit to create a liquid colouring for painting on to icing, or for airbrushing.

Equally suitable for colouring sponge cake, marzipan, white chocolate, various other food and drinks. Sugarflair icing paste colourings are fat free, nut free, gluten free, GM free, are certified Kosher and are suitable for vegetarians.

Use Rejuvenator Fluid to breathe new life into dried paste icing colourings and for cleaning icing colours from equipment.

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COLOURINGS & FOOD SAFETY . . .

Because Cake Stuff offers colourings from the USA as well as the UK, it's important we try to clarify the position with colourings / labelling / legalities / safety etc. It's not an easy area - there's lots of conflicting advice, not helped by a few jealous competitors who even claim it is "illegal" for us to sell US colourings. Well - no, it's not actually!

The confusion probably starts with "E" numbers . . . E numbers are not "bad" as many people seem to think, the "E" stands for Europe and this is the European classification system for additives which are approved as safe for use in food. In the USA you'd see an FD&C number (Food, Drug & Cosmetic Act) doing a similar job, showing that the colouring had been approved by the FDA (Food and Drug Administration).

When we import US colourings, we have convert the American FD&C numbers to the European E numbers. Very occasionally the American system approves a colouring with the European system does not, and vice versa. The most well known example is Red 3 which the American FDA regards as completely safe but the European Union only approve for use in glac? cherries. OK, so without being political, here's the question . . . if the EU think it's safe to eat French glac? cherries, why would it not be safe to eat the same colouring in icing? America agrees.

Wherever an anomaly like this appears, we will show the colouring as being a "competition colouring". We are therefore not encouraging its use as an edible item - we offer it for use in competition / exhibition / display pieces and know our customers have more than enough intelligence to make the final decision about how and where to use the colouring. If there was any question of a product being unsafe we would not dream of offering it for sale.

In addition, latest EU regulations include a provision that foods containing the six food colours E110, E104, E122, E129, E102 and E124 must be labelled not only with the relevant E number but also with the words "may have an adverse effect on activity and attention in some children".