Building the four-colour palette

Gel paste, not liquid

Liquid colour is about 90 percent water and will drop a stiff-peak icing to medium at the quantities deep tones need. Gel paste is measured with a toothpick: dip the tip 3 mm in, wipe it on the side of the bowl and mix. A toothpick tip is roughly 0.02 g, and 250 g of buttercream needs two to four of them for a deep tone and one for a pastel.

Velvet wine #5A1B2E

Two toothpick tips of claret gel per 250 g, plus a quarter tip of burgundy to take the pink edge off. Wine deepens dramatically over two hours as the gel hydrates, so mix it, cover it and check it again after an hour before deciding it needs more. Over-coloured wine turns brown-black, and there is no way back except adding fresh white icing - which is why the second half of the bowl should always be left uncoloured until the first half is right.

Petal pink #E9A6BC

One drop of claret per 300 g, mixed thoroughly, then rested ten minutes. Pink is the tone that most often goes wrong because it is mixed in a hurry and reads too strong while the gel is still in streaks. Adding a quarter tip of antique gold warms it and stops it looking like bubblegum under warm kitchen light.

Antique gold #C9A227

One toothpick tip of gold gel per 200 g for piping, and one per 250 g for a base coat - a mix that looks muddy brown in the bowl reads as gold once it crusts. Gold is the only tone here that fades: it lightens by roughly a shade over a day, so mix it one shade deeper than you want the finish to be. For gilded highlights, dust dry gold lustre onto a crusted surface with a soft brush rather than adding more gel.

Ink #1B1418

One toothpick tip of super black per 400 g. Ink is not simply black: it carries a little wine so it sits in the same family as the rest of the palette. Black gel tastes bitter above about one toothpick tip per 300 g, so deep blacks are built by starting from a wine base and adding black to it rather than by pouring black into white icing.

Colour and food safety

Gel pastes are concentrated: keep to the ratios above rather than eyeballing, particularly for reds and blacks, which are the two families most often associated with taste complaints. Colour mixed icing keeps two days covered at room temperature or a week refrigerated if it is a buttercream base; royal icing should be coloured fresh each session.

The house palette by weight of icing

Tone	Hex	Recipe	Behaviour
Velvet wine	#5A1B2E	2 toothpick tips claret + 1/4 tip burgundy per 250 g	Deepens over 2 hours
Petal pink	#E9A6BC	1 drop claret per 300 g + 1/4 tip gold	Reads strong while streaky
Antique gold	#C9A227	1 toothpick tip per 200 g	Lightens a shade per day
Ink	#1B1418	1 toothpick tip super black per 400 g	Bitter if overdosed

Mixing order that avoids rework

Weigh the icing into the bowl first; never colour by eye from a shared batch.
Mix the deepest tone first, in the smallest bowl, then work lighter.
Rest coloured icing twenty minutes before judging the tone.
Keep half the base icing uncoloured as an escape route.
Record the toothpick count on a scrap of paper - matching a tone next week depends on it.