Tips and Tricks: Making Colored Sugar

When we made homemade peeps last week, our recipe told us to use expensive fine-crystal colored sugar. But we only had pink sugar, and we didn't want to run to the store for a project that might not work. So instead, we made our own.

In a small food processor, we put a cup of sugar and about 10 drops of food coloring. A few pulses, and we had the bright yellow peep color we were looking for. The sugar is slightly wet, so you'll want to spread it out on a sheet pan to dry for about ten minutes before using.

We're looking forward to using this tip when we decorate spring cakes, and make cut-out Christmas cookies. Rather than store half a dozen different colors of sugar, we'll simply make them to order as we need them.

Comments (4)

Great tip, Nina.

More recently, I've found that adding a few drops of beet juice (fresh from grated beets) adds a beautiful pink hue to sugar or frosting, without the potentially scary chemicals in food coloring. I haven't found good substitutes for any color other than pink though - any thoughts?

Leah
The Jew & The Carrot blog
http://www.jcarrot.org

posted by The Jew And The Carrot on March 24th 2008 at 6:59am
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Wow! Beet juice! What a good idea. Turmeric makes a very good natural yellow and orange stain.

posted by faith on March 24th 2008 at 11:32am
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a caution from an old experiment of mine:
beet juice turns dull light brown pretty quickly, but not a problem for a one (or two?) day baked good.
Just don't make it up too far in advance.

I've seen *natural*organic*vegan* food colorings for sale...

posted by guido on March 24th 2008 at 11:58am
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nina - i just by accident discovered a natural dye to produce a lovely lilac colored sugar: black beans! i had some beans soaking overnight, and noticed in the morning that the water they were in became a dark purple color. this made me think of your post, and sure enough, a couple drops in some white sugar produced a lovely light purple.

posted by sarahbfrom on March 29th 2008 at 5:09am
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