I'd dig up a red velvet cake recipe for guidance.

1 oz of food coloring for red velvet cupcakes

I prefer Americolor to Wilton for deep colors. So, if the Wilton doesn't work, try the Americolor.

So you mean the creamy pudding dessert, yes? Not Irish black sausage?

I added green coloring to mac and cheese for a halloween party once. All the kids loved it except my own. He has some food aversions, and when he saw the color, he couldn't do it. Oops. I probably should have foreseen that.

Use a toothpick to add gel colors!!! Get the red first and then darken.

Something else I learned the hard way. But gel colors are the strongest I've used.

Thanks. I'll look up Americolor and where to buy.

LOL nope not the real blood pudding. I'm making Vietnamese yogurt and coloring it to look like a cup of blood. DH's employees requested homemade treats from me for Halloween. They've been watching him bring in all sort of "exotic" lunches.

So you mean the creamy pudding dessert, yes? Not Irish black sausage?

That's where my mind went too!

I make cakes, and I can tell you this: Red and black are HARD TO MAKE. Both require a great deal of coloring ... and as they sit, they become darker.

Word of warning - re yogurt. If your plan is for them to actually eat it - This may turn everyone's teeth red as it may take a lot of the coloring to get your desired affect ....

@nightowl Oh my gosh!!! I do intend for them to eat. Hmm not sure how people will feel about the colored teeth. LOL

When people ate my red, white and blue cake, the colors were saturated too and I used a crap ton of coloring to get those deep colors. However, since it was in cake form, no one got colored teeth.

I'll put up warning signs then.

I called Americolor. Their corporate HQ is actually near me but they will only ship out. I got referred to a retailer that's farther away but I can drive to and pick up. Americolor won't let me order on their site and pick up.

HobbyLobby has all this stuff. Do you have one nearby? Or an A.C.Moore?

I used black decorator sugar once, and it turned our mouths black.

You could use pomegranate juice in place of water in the recipe, and if you need more color you could replace some of the sweetened condensed milk with pomegranate molasses. Natural colorants tend toward the brown-red, but they won’t stain your teeth.

@eam44 that's a great idea. I'll experiment with the pomegranate juice. Not sure how it will affect the taste but I'm open to it.

When people ate my red, white and blue cake, the colors were saturated
too and I used a crap ton of coloring to get those deep colors.
However, since it was in cake form, no one got colored teeth.

Weird but true story:

Last year I made a special cake for my co-workers for St. Patrick's Day. It was two layers of Green Velvet Cake with a cheesecake in between the layers ... iced with cream cheese icing, green sprinkles on top. It was a pretty incredible cake.

Not long after eating the cake, all of us had the same odd experience: We felt fine, but were pooping a sick green color that might've indicated flu of some sort. We quickly figured out that none of us were sick: It was just all that green food coloring.

We all laughed and laughed, but I haven't made that cake again.

Oh God - Mrs. P - I wish I hadn't had a sip of coffee just before I read this. haha - off to find the screen cleaner...

beachem, for red blood 'pudding' (I love that you're doing this!) I'd first take 1/2 cup or so out and put in a separate bowl to experiment (maybe divide that into 2, 1/4 cups for a few attempts). Red and blue mixed together will make a purplish color, so unless that's what you're going for... you could add a bit of blue to one test bowl after you get the red and black mixed to your liking if you need to offset an 'unfortunate' mixture. Go very, very easy with the black. Use a toothpick to add a bit at a time (powder, cream, or liquid)

Black coloring is crazy - to my understanding (and I may be wrong but doubt it) there is nothing that is a true black and it tends to be made with blues, yellows, greens, and when thinned as you will be doing in pudding it really shows up, so you might wish to keep that very minimal or you'll end up with tints you don't want in your blood. Still, I'd use black to darken your color - just slooooowly in case it goes sideways.

I like to get a pic on my phone or tablet for color matching, and use that to help me when mixing... but I go by my eyes in the end.

Good luck, and post the results - I can't wait to see it!

ETA: I find red powder coloring to be more intense, then gels/creams, then liquids, but your results may vary. And yes, with intense colors, it can stain teeth for quite a while. Also, what goes in, must come out ;-P

I second 2Many's recommendation to start with a small batch. Be sure to take notes of the quantities of the color(s) you add to this small batch, so you can scale up appropriately and keep proportions accurate. This was very handy for me in case I underestimated the amount of royal icing I needed for a particular project, and color matching was critical.

My 9yo son came home from school one day terrified and crying because there was blood in his urine, and also "coming out the other way too." I called the dr's office and they said I needed to bring him in right away if he had blood in his urine. After asking a ton of questions and getting a urine sample, the doctor asked offhandedly if he had eaten beets in the past 24 hours. I about fell off of my chair. I had just cooked beets for the first time the night before, and my son had gobbled them up. The tears turned to laughter as the dr explained that yes, they can change the color of your urine and your poop. What a relief that was!

I love beets. I’ve been there.

stillpitpat, beets get me every time! I can eat an entire bowl of them. Then a few hours go by, you forget about what you ate, go to the bathroom, and Horrors!!! I'm hemorrhaging!!!

Beet juice, before or after ingesting, really looks like blood. Can it be used in place of or to supplement food coloring?

@linelle I originally thought about beet juice but my yogurt is very delicate in taste. It's only milk, water, a bit of sugar and starter. The flavor comes wholly from the fermenting action. It's a lightly sweet, tart taste. The beet is very strong tasting and can overwhelm it.

@beachem, got it. I lost track of what food you wanted to look like blood.

I like beets, but I've heard the taste described as "like dirt," and I can see that. Probably not good for pudding. But what a glorious color!

I prefer to think of the flavor of beets to be "earthy." Very sweet earth. It was a flavor I hated, until I decided I love it. Like cilantro.

Ok just a smidgeon too much blue but it's ok for gums. This is my frosting for the Halloween treats.

I'll have to go very slow for the blood. The Americolor was much much deeper than Wilton. I had rotting organ meat color with the Wilton til I dropped in a large hunk of Americolor gel.

Gums and arterial blood....whoa, cannot wait to see your gruesome creation(s). :)

Gums... gums? What the heck are you creating? You're not baking a new hubby are you?! :-) I thought you were just doing a bowl of blood! Can't wait to see it your creative genius when it's done!

LoL I'm making two different treats for hubby's company pot luck. Hubby just came home and complained that the gums are now too real looking. He complained the last batch was too cherry pink but he prefer that to this.

I'm on my third set of cookies but we have a winner with the peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. It's a little too soft to work with so things don't look as attractive.

These have all been experiments til hubby is happy. The final production is Monday.

Does anyone know - is a cookie cake just a large, frosted cookie? How does one determine done-ness? My niece just turned eight....

I made several 'cookie cakes' many years ago for various occasions. Mine consisted of 1-1/2x basic chocolate chip cookie recipe, spread out into a 14" round pizza pan (parchment lined). From my scribbled notes: 350F - 15-20' on the bottom rack, then 5-10' more on the middle rack. I think I gauged done-ness like I would have a regular cookie. Since I didn't want to take a chance, I'd poke open the middle to check; and would cover up the blemish with some well placed, piped ganache flowers. :)

ETA: I decorated with both white and dark chocolate ganache flowering, lettering, designs, etc.

i LOVE cookie cakes -- chocolate chip ones. EAM - in my experience yes, just a large decorated cookie.

So get this. The cookies last night came out really good and a bit gruesome so hubby got cold feet and told me that the blood pudding in addition will be too edgy for his company. WHAT!!! Wimp. He works in Hollywood.

This is after I spent days shopping and testing. I'm just going to make it anyway and give it out somewhere. I've got three gallons of milk that I can't drink up in time.

Awww....that's a shame, beachem. Too edgy for Hollywood...really?!

We still wanna see pics, though, before you give them away.

Oh no!!! Too "edgy" - on Halloween ???? whimp indeed

beachem - that looks pretty RED

Unfortunately it may be a dud. I used pomegranate juice instead of water in the base and so far after four hours, it's still liquidity and no sign of setting. I'll stay up til 2 am to check.

Update. The blood pudding is a failure. Color - good. Flavor - good. Pomegranate juice - killed or retarded the bacteria culture. Yogurt did not set at all. 14 hrs with a liquid cup still.

It looks like it curdled the milk.

Arterial red-colored curdle -- perfect for Halloween ambiance, I say! Can you use it for display purposes only, and maybe post a "Look but don't taste/eat/drink" sign? :) A for effort, beachem. Your gummy-toothy treats more than made up for this setback.

Too edgy? What a shame! It sounds really cool!

beachem - sorry!! The color was amazing.

Here's what the blood pudding looks like. LOL my doctor told me yesterday I should have just sent it along and named it as congealed blood since that's the consistency.

Oh, the containers...people mistaking those for ketchup would've made it Halloween prank of the year (though, I'd imagine DH would not have been pleased).

That kills me beachem, that was so much work :- ( Clever to put them in those little containers. But your Dracula cookies turned out amazing - bet you had a billion compliments on the looks and taste! It's hard to make 'yummy' scary goodies, and I think making the mouths out of those delicious looking choc chip cookies, balancing the icing for the sweetness was so smart! You're DH is a lucky fella!