Hey! Isn't it great to make cakes and cupcakes pop with a little bit of color. You can color the batter or the frosting or both. The three main types of food coloring are liquid, gel, and powder.
- Liquid: Liquid food coloring can be found at most grocery stores. Obviously they can also be found at baking supplies stores and some craft stores like Hobby Lobby. Liquid food coloring may be the most common and easiest to find type, but since liquid food coloring is highly water based, it can change the thickness of batter, frosting, and especially chocolate and fondant. It is okay for batter, but I don't recommend it for frosting, chocolate, or fondant.
- Gel: Gel food coloring can be found at baking supplies stores, some grocery stores, and some craft stores. I buy mine at Hobby Lobby. I also prefer Wilton brand. Because it is less water based, this works great for batter and frosting and also works for chocolate and fondant. When used for fondant it will make a mess though.
- Powder: Powder food coloring can be found at some grocery stores and craft stores and at baking supplies stores. This is the best type for making chocolate and fondant. It's also less messy for making fondant. It can also be used for batter and frosting, but it is unnecessary because gel food coloring works just fine.
If you don't want to buy a bunch of different colors or you're not sure which colors you will need, then you can just buy the 3 primary colors (red, yellow, and blue) plus brown and black. You can mix any colors you want with primary colors except brown and black.
Here's a chart to shows how to mix some different colors:
Hope you enjoy coloring batter, frosting, chocolate, fondant, and anything else you want.