Seriously, making black buttercream frosting is difficult. When I first started cake decorating I thought that using only black color gel would get a beautiful black buttercream. Wrong… I have used an entire container black color gel (actually a few containers) and still ended up with grey buttercream. The more color you add, the more you sacrifice taste only to have grey buttercream.  So now what? I knew there had to be another way.  I have tried a few methods and I found this method works perfectly for me.

What Colors Make Black Buttercream?

I’m not sure when I did this, but I had to re-educate myself on the color wheel.  The color wheel consists of primary colors, secondary and tertiary colors. Black is not on it.  However, black can be made by a few combinations of colors.  One combination includes equal parts of red, yellow, and blue. Another combination is by mixing blue and brown. If you run out of black food gel color, you can mix buttercream with all these colors to make black.  This is not what I am recommending today, but you get the idea.

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How to Make Black Buttercream Icing?

I have covered a few color combinations to make black, but is there another alternative?  Or an easier way?  Yes, there is an easier way.  Normally, coloring a white buttercream with black color gel will get you a dark grey.  This will make you want to pull your hair out (don’t do that ok). My suggestion is to start with chocolate buttercream, then add black coloring gel as needed.  Make chocolate either through melted chocolate or using the darkest cocoa powder you can find such as Hersheys special dark cocoa powder.

But my preferred method is using black cocoa powder, but it is expensive.  If the price is not a factor for you, use a good amount of the black cocoa powder and you won’t need to add any black color gel.  Finally, you have to let the buttercream sit overnight or for a couple of hours to get the deep black color you like.

Step by Step Guide

• Start with a good buttercream recipe, I recommend using this buttercream guide for recipes.  The ones that take color the best are Lauren’s Kitchen buttercream or American buttercream.  You can make this with Swiss Meringue or Italian Meringue, but it will take some time to get there.
• Add cocoa powder to the buttercream, I started out with one tablespoon of black cocoa powder and kept adding as I go.
• This is after I have added about 4 tablespoons of the black cocoa powder.  It is normal to panic at this point, just keep adding a bit more cocoa powder.  I also added a little bit of Wilton black gel food color to the buttercream. But, you can use Americolor super black.
• Almost there…
• A little bit of patience and finally.  Let it sit for a few hours or overnight and you will have a beautiful black buttercream.
• I used this buttercream to make a drip cake and also piped it on a chocolate cupcake with a sprinkle of gold sugar pearls.

That’s it. Don’t forget to share the love, pin for later.  Until next time.  Happy baking and decorating.