It's Valentine's Day; break out the Red No. 40! Seriously, though, the day is accompanied by a slew of artificially-colored red and pink foods. But if you'd like to stay away from the fake stuff, here are a few alternatives to consider for your homemade Valentine's Day treats:
1. Hibiscus flowers steeped in a bit of hot water until cooled
2. Boiled cranberries (as outlined at Stretcher.com)
3. Red beet juice
4. Red beet powder
5. Pomegranate juice
Some of these colorants will affect flavor more than others, but that might not be unwanted: imagine a hint of pomegranate in the icing on chocolate cupcakes! Do you have other tried and true methods of making your own red or pink food coloring? Please share in the comments!
Related: Recipe Roundup: Make It a Red Velvet Valentine's Day!
(Image: Emma Christensen)
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I made a Joy the Baker beet cake (but I put mine in a bundt pan) with beet pink icing yesterday for my daughter's half birthday, which coincidentally falls the day before Valentine's Day.
Polly -- People make mistakes. Not the end of the world. When they're putting out that many posts in a day, grammar glitches are bound to happen. No need to call her out for it.
Thanks for sticking up for us, sugarcoating. You're right - sometimes we miss things by accident in the rush of the day, although we always do our best to catch everything. I've fixed it now.
Good stuff! My husband gets migraines from Red 40 (tough trigger to identify, btw--we only figured it out after 2 days of red velvet cake). We joke that Valentine's day is the Red Fortiest day of the year.
Honestly, in the past I've just skipped coloring when a recipe calls for it (or used another color, red's the only one he has a problem with), but I could see myself trying beets.
hear hear
If anyone is wondering...
Dried Hibiscus flowers can be found in most Mexican markets.
They are frequently near the packaged dried chilies.
(They might be marked For de Jamaica.)
Jamaica tea, which is made by steeping the buds, tastes a bit like cranberry or pomegranate to me. I like it.
And I can vouch for Bon Appetit's "Coconut Sheet Cake with Hibiscus Sauce"--delicious.
I love red velvet anything but am grossed out by food colouring, so I use frozen berries to give my red velvet pancakes a beautiful colour. Bonus: these pancakes are gluten-free AND have a yummy berry flavour.
www.freshnessgf.com/all-natural-red-velvet-pancakes/
Yeah, I just make red velvet without the colouring. What most people don't seem to realize is they're eating red-dyed chocolate cake with cream cheese icing...yet for whatever reason the red makes it taste 'better' than regular chocolate would. Once you realize it though, it doesn't really matter.
I'm a big fan of the site, but why do you guys delete comments? If you can admit to your mistakes and explain yourself, why not just leave the comments up?
Red V cake usually uses a little less chocolate than traditional chocolate cake (my theory is that back in the day, southerners dyed it red to hide the fact that the cake skimped on cocoa). Maybe there is something about the lighter chocolate flavor + cream cheese frosting that people like? Cream cheese frosting does make any cake kind of heavenly...
yay! i'm allergic to food coloring so i love posts like this :)