A complete guide on how to make dark green icing using gel and liquid food coloring! With 5 different dark green shades, I've got you covered for all your Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, and army green cookies!
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What You Need to Make Dark Green Icing:
- Gel food coloring: When you search "how to make dark green icing with food coloring" there are a lot of sites that give formulas requiring specific shades of gel food coloring, so today I'm giving you formulas using the Wilton Color Right System so that you only have to purchase one set (instead of 25 random, one-off colors). I'm going to show you how to make dark green icing with wilton food coloring, as well as a dark green using the generic liquid food colors you find at the grocery store.
- Frosting/Icing: While I give you the formulas below using buttercream frosting, you can also use this recipe for royal icing, easy cookie icing, or sugar cookie glaze! The colors will vary a bit depending on the type of icing you use, so you'll just have to adjust the color accordingly.
How To Make Dark Green Icing - 5 Ways
Each formula shows how to make a different shade of dark green using food coloring gel, using 1 cup of buttercream frosting. Note that the liquid food coloring formula (at the end of the post) is based off ½ cup frosting. If you've ever wondered how to make dark green buttercream, here's 5 different shades!
Tip! If you're looking for brighter green icing colors, check out my Christmas Cookie Frosting formulas.
How to Make Dark Forest Green Icing (Hunter Green)
Ever wondered how to make Christmas green icing? Here's one of my favorite deep green shades for Christmas wreaths, trees, and elf cookies!
Gel Food Coloring Formula: 16 drops Wilton blue + 10 drops Wilton yellow + 2 drops Wilton black + 8 drops Wilton brown + 1 cup buttercream (or royal icing or glaze)
Perfect for: Christmas tree cookies, holiday wreath cookies, holly leafs, St. Patrick's Day frosting, deep floral leafs, green vegetable cookies
Traditional Dark Green Buttercream
Learn how to make a traditional dark green with gel food coloring using this simple formula!
Gel Food Coloring Formula: 6 drops Wilton blue + 8 drops Wilton yellow + 2 drops Wilton black + 1 cup buttercream (or royal icing or glaze)
Perfect for: Christmas tree cookies, sports jersey cookies, grass icing, cactus cookies, St, Patrick's Day cookies
Dark Sage Green Icing / Army Green Icing
If you've ever wondered how to make army green icing with food coloring, here's a simple formula!
Gel Food Coloring Formula: 2 drops Wilton blue + 4 drops Wilton yellow + + 4 drops Wilton black + 1 cup buttercream (or royal icing or glaze)
Perfect for: Army cookies, camouflage cookie frosting, autumn leafs, grass frosting
How to Make Emerald Green Frosting
Gel Food Coloring Formula: 8 drops Wilton blue + 6 drops Wilton yellow + 2 drops Wilton black + 1 cup buttercream (or royal icing or glaze)
Perfect for: jewel cookies, Christmas tree cookies, holly leafs, St. Patrick's Day cookies, mardi gras cookies, shamrock cookies, emerald wedding cookies
Olive Green Icing
Gel Food Coloring Formula: 2 drops Wilton blue + 2 drops Wilton yellow + 2 drops Wilton black + 2 drops Wilton brown + 1 cup buttercream (or royal icing or glaze)
Perfect for: Fall cookies, leafs, moss green icing, vegetable sugar cookies
Bonus: Dark Green Icing with Liquid Food Coloring
Getting a really deep, dark green requires a lot of liquid food coloring. So while the color below isn't super dark, it's about as dark as I'd recommend going when using liquid food coloring or you'll start tasting it. For this test, I used McCormick Assorted Liquid Food Coloring.
Liquid Food Coloring: 24 drops blue + 32 drops green + 4 drops yellow + ½ cup buttercream (or royal icing or glaze)
Perfect for: sports cookies, green grass icing, St. Patrick's Day cookies, Christmas tree icing
Mixing Food Coloring
The easiest way to mix food coloring is to scoop the frosting into a bowl and mix with a spoon or rubber spatula until all icing is blended. It is easiest to hold the bowl in one hand and stir it with the other, rather than trying to mix while the bowl is on the counter. Be sure to scrape all the icing from the bottom of the bowl, to ensure no white icing is left.
It is easiest to use a solid bowl (like ceramic) rather than a lightweight plastic.
Frosting Tips & Tricks
- Rather than buy 25 bottles of food coloring, invest in a verstaile set of gel food coloring that you can mix & match! My favorite is the Wilton Color Right System.
- It is easiest to use a solid bowl (like ceramic) rather than a lightweight plastic bowl.
- Avoid lemon extract, as the acidity in this can discolor your frosting (causing it to turn darker or brown).
- Scroll for a printable guide to making dark green using gel food coloring!
How do I make my icing darker?
There are two easy ways to make icing darker:
- Add more food coloring, of course! Just be careful not taste it as you go to ensure you are not adding so much food coloring that you begin to taste it. If you want your frosting just a tad bit darker, dip a toothpick into the food coloring (rather than dropping it in). This allows you to add a tiny amount and best control the color.
- Place colored frosting in an airtight container and store in fridge. Allowing the frosting to sit for 1-2 days will allow the colors to deepen. When ready to use, thaw and restir the frosting to smooth it out.
How do I make my icing lighter?
If you've made the frosting darker than you'd like, you can dilute the color.
If you are just trying to achieve a light green color overall, dip a toothpick into the food coloring (rather than dropping it in). This allows you to add a tiny amount and best control the color. For lighter green frosting colors, check out my Christmas Cookie Frosting formulas.
Dark Green Gel Food Color Mixing Chart
Use the red button below to save this dark green mixing chart to your Pinterest board!
Bethany H says
Can I halve the drops to make a half-cup of frosting and still maintain the beautiful color shown in the 1 cup version?
Melissa says
That will work just fine as long as you can manage to get half drops!
Dawn Williams says
I am so GLAD someone shared your information. Do you have a instructional book for mixing colors?
Melissa says
Hi Dawn! So glad you're here! I don't have an instructional book but I find that the color chart in the Wilton set is a great start. There's also some great charts online if you search "frosting color charts". Hope that helps!