Wilton blue food coloring comes in a lot of shades to make a variety of blue frosting colors, so I decided to look at four of them to see what the differences were. I did light, medium, and dark versions of Wilton Teal, Sky Blue, Delphinium, and Cornflower, plus Americolor Navy Blue, Teal, and Royal Blue, and these are the results.
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Mixing method for coloring buttercream icing.
The Wilton colors that I was using were the little jars of the paste colors, which will last for a long time as long as you don’t contaminate them by getting icing into them. The jars say “gel” but these aren’t the dropper bottles of gel color.
The best way to avoid contaminating the jar is to use toothpicks to get the food coloring out so that you can use a clean pick each time you want to add more color.
I also used to use poultry lacers for this so that I wouldn’t be throwing toothpicks away all the time, but the important thing is to avoid double-dipping in the food coloring!
Start with a little color, and add more as you go. Some of the colors are really strong, so start with less than you think you’ll need and work your way up.
These colors are a lot more concentrated than liquid food coloring, and they give you better colors. Click here to check the difference between these, regular McCormick colors, and natural food colorings.
Wilton Delphinium Blue.
Wilton Delphinium Blue is a dusty blue color that’s a nice pastel blue. It was one of my favorite Wilton food colorings, and I used it all the time when I was making gumpaste flowers. It makes a pretty dusty blue frosting.
I mixed some up using toothpicks and starting with a little bit of color then adding more to get progressively darker tones.
The shades of blue that you can get with Delphinium Blue are very pretty and are good for flowers and for some succulents. I used to use this color a lot because it’s a nice, soft blue that’s good for a lot of themes.
Wilton Cornflower Blue.
Wilton Cornflower Blue is very similar to Delphinium, but it’s a little greener. It still gives you a good pastel color but it doesn’t have the same purple undertones.
Make sure that you use clean toothpicks and spatulas that are free from other colors so that you keep the pure blue color when you’re mixing everything up.
This gives you a range of colors that could be used for a lot of different things, including sky and water.
Here are the two sets of colors next to each other, with Delphinium on the left and Cornflower on the right. You can see that they’re very similar but that the Cornflower is greener. Both of the darkest versions would be good if you needed a dark Navy Blue.
Click to see a comparison of yellow food coloring.
Wilton Sky Blue.
Wilton Sky Blue is much brighter than the first two colors, and it ends up being very different. Use clean toothpicks to dip into the jar but start with a small amount because a little of this goes a long way.
You’ll obviously have to use more if you’re coloring a regular-sized amount of icing, but start with about 1/8 tsp to darken it little by little.
Sky blue makes a nice range of colors that could be used on baby shower cakes, or for a pool party cake where you want to make blue water and lighter blue sky.
Wilton Teal.
I included Teal in this group, but it’s really a lot greener than that. The thing about this color, though, is that you can use it to make the famous “jewelry box blue” color that I can’t write the name of because it’s copyrighted.
The lightest version of this color is basically the same as the jewelry box color, so it’s pretty easy to make. It’s called T—–y blue, but it’s really a teal color. And yes, it really is copyrighted and I really can’t use the name.
Here it is in some fondant, so you can see that it gives you that distinctive blue color that people ask for!
Comparing the Wilton colors.
Here’s a comparison of some of the blue colors that Wilton makes. They’re all different, but they could all be used for flowers, sky and water, and sometimes succulents. (I used blue for a lot of gumpaste succulents.)
Americolor Teal.
Americolor Teal is a gel in a dropper bottle, so you don’t have to use the toothpicks. You might want to, though, if you only need a tiny bit. You can open the bottle and use the toothpick that way instead of dropping it out.
This teal was very similar to the Wilton teal, with a green tint that could be used for turquoise.
The final colors were very similar, so either brand will give you a decent teal color depending on how much you use.
Americolor Electric Blue.
This makes a nice blue color that was very similar to the Sky Blue.
It didn’t take a lot of food coloring to make a good color, so this one would be good for Springtime cakes where you’re piping flowers.
To see swatch demos of the entire Electric Colors Kit, click here.
Americolor Royal Blue.
The Americolor Royal Blue makes a really pretty blue color.
This shade was similar to the Wilton Sky Blue in the lighter colors, and you can get a good dark version of the royal color. If you were doing an ombre effect the two colors together would work really well.
Americolor Navy Blue.
Americolor Navy Blue gives you a good navy color when you use a lot of it.
You would need a decent amount if you want to get the darkest version.
This is a good navy color with a tiny bit of green that shows up in the lighter versions.
Color comparisons.
These are the Americolor shades that I looked at, with the Wilton shades as well. One thing to notice is that the icing with the gel dropper color was a lot runnier on the paper than the icing with the paste color. So the Americolor might soften the icing up more than Wilton will. The colors might also vary depending on computer settings and the lighting, but in general, the colors are fairly similar between the two brands.
Blue food coloring in real life.
Since the shades of blue have different types of undertones, you can mix and match them with green to create more varieties of blue and green.
Blue is a pretty color that can be used in a lot of ways and in a lot of shades…Check out these blue and coral wedding cakes to see some examples of different blue combinations.
