Do you need to quickly make some brown icing for a hedgehog or bear cake? Have you looked in the cupboard and found out that you have no brown food coloring? Do you not have time to run to the store? Or perhaps you can’t find any there and can’t wait for an online order to arrive.
Don’t panic! There are some ways you can still make brown icing with ease, often with ingredients that you may have in your cupboard.
Use Cocoa Powder
It seems obvious, but adding a little cocoa powder to royal icing will make the icing brown.
The depth of the color may vary depending on the type of cocoa powder, the amount you use, and the density of the cocoa in the powder.
For instance, Dutch-processed cocoa powder and regular cocoa powder are unsweetened. The regular powder is lighter in color, meaning if you add it to the icing, the end shade will be lighter. It is worth experimenting with the different cocoa powders until you find a shade you like! For emergencies, use whatever cocoa powder you have in the cupboard. It will still provide you with brown icing.
Directions:
- For every cup of white icing, add a tablespoon of the darkest, unsweetened cocoa powder. Mix it together well. This will create a very stiff icing.
- Add some warm water to the mixture, a drop at a time. Mix it together after each addition until you reach the desired consistency.
Color Wheels and Brown Icing
To make the different shades of brown you may need, we will walk you through using more common food coloring to make different shades of brown. Once the colors are mixed, add them to the icing.
For the parts we mention here, it could be a drop or a ml. So, 1 part blue would mean 1 drop or 1 ml to get the desired shade.
- Light Brown: 1 part red + 1 part green.
- Medium Brown: 4 parts yellow + 2 parts red + 2 parts blue.
- Deep Brown: 8 parts red + 5 parts green + 1 part blue.