Whether in baking or cooking - food coloring is often used. But to be on the safe side, that no harmful synthetic dyes are contained, you can simply make the food coloring yourself. Find out how to do it here!
Make your own food coloring: What you need to know
Basically, light foods are much easier to color than darker ones: A dark chocolate dough will hardly change their color with yellow food coloring. In that case, you should bake the dough first and then decorate it with a glaze, topping or fondant.
When coloring liquid foods, it's best to use a liquid coloring agent as well. If, on the other hand, you are dealing with a tough dough, coloring powder is the method of choice.
Coloring powder has a longer shelf life. A coloring juice, on the other hand, should be processed as soon as possible.
With natural food coloring, you need to use a larger amount of powder or juice to achieve the desired shade compared to artificial.
How to make your own food coloring
If you want to make food coloring yourself, you can draw from the full palette of nature: herbs, vegetables, spices, berries ... natural color pigments are abundant in nature and often you already have them at home!
Make your own red food coloring
Raspberries (light red)
Red currants (light red)
Red cabbage (bluish tone)
Blueberries (bluish tone)
Beet (dark red)
Make food coloring from berries
Put plenty of berries in a pot and boil them until they are soft. If you don't mind the seeds, you can puree the berries raw. Then strain them through a sieve to separate the color juice from the small seeds.
Make food coloring from vegetables
Cut the vegetables into small pieces and boil them with a little water until soft before pureeing them in a blender. Then you can pass the vegetables through a sieve and collect the coloring pulp.
Make coloring powder
Boil down the juice while stirring to a thick paste. Stir in powdered sugar as soon as the mixture sticks to the bottom. The powdered sugar will cause crumbs to form in the mixture. Spread the mixture on a baking sheet and let it dry in the oven at 30 degrees. Afterwards, you can grind the powder in a mortar to get the finest possible consistency. Shelf life of the color powder: Stored dry, dark and not too warm, the powder will keep for a few weeks.
Make your own yellow food coloring
Turmeric powder: Take care with turmeric that the spice already has its own taste. Therefore, taste it while you stir in the color powder.
Saffron (Attention: expensive)
Make your own orange food coloring
Paprika powder (Note: Mild paprika powder has less flavor)
Carrot juice
Note: Paprika is suitable for savory dishes, while carrot juice is suitable for sweet dishes.
Make your own blue food coloring
Blueberries
Black currants
Beet
Red cabbage
+ baking soda
The above berries and vegetables create a dark red hue. Once you have obtained a pulp after boiling down, pass the mixture through a sieve and collect the juice. Mix the juice with some baking soda and you'll get a blue hue.
Make your own purple food coloring
Raspberries
Red currants
+ baking soda
Again, stir in some baking soda to the plant juice (be careful not to use too much, or the color will be more grayish).
Make your own green food coloring
Matcha tea
Wheatgrass powder (Attention: Note own taste)
Spirulina algae powder
Chlorella
Barley grass powder (Attention: note own taste)
Liquid green color you get from:
Spinach
Parsley
To obtain a green color from spinach or parsley, wash the leaves and puree them with a little water. Then you pass the mixture through a fine sieve and collect the juice. The juice is then brought to a boil in a pot. After a short time, the green dye chlorophyll appears on the surface, which you can easily skim off with a spoon. Shelf life: one week in the refrigerator. Chlorophyll is not suitable for freezing!
Advantages of homemade food coloring
With homemade food coloring you know exactly what is in it
The color does not contain preservatives, flavor enhancers, synthetic dyes or added sugar
The homemade color is healthier!