Icing a Cake with Homemade Food Coloring
February 27th, 2012 by Roxanne | Filed under Eco & Toxin-Free Living, Grain-Free & Gluten-Free, Holistic Lifestyle, Ways to Save Money.
Today is my daughter’s 2nd birthday. Time has flown by quickly! Yesterday we celebrated her birthday and I was determined to make her an Elmo cake (gluten-free) because she has a bit of an Elmo obsession. Conventional food coloring was not an option because they are not safe or natural. None of the health food stores nearby carried any natural food coloring so I had to start from scratch. It took a few tries but in the end it turned out great.
In researching food coloring from food, most of the ideas I found were based in water which wasn’t really an option for icing. Once I made the icing, adding more then just a few drops of water thinned out the icing and made it too watery. In an attempt to make red icing, I tried cranberry juice. It was making a nice color but the amount of juice needed to get the very red color of Elmo was thinning out the icing way too much. I concluded that it would be best to use a whole food or something in a powdered form to color the icing.
Here is how I got my colors to work…
Red: The best way to color the icing red was by using Beet Root Powder
Pink: In my trials of making the red icing, I came up with a very nice deep pink color with strawberries. Take a handful of whole fresh or frozen strawberries and put them in the blender. Once they are chopped well add the icing into the blender and blend until mixed. The strawberry flavor is also delicious!
Yellow / Orange: For Elmo’s nose I needed an orangy color. I read that a great way to get yellow was by using Turmeric
Green: I didn’t need a green for my Elmo project but I found out that a great way to make green is to use Matcha Green Tea PowderSince this is in a powder form, I am sure it would work just as great as the beet root powder or the turmeric.
Blue: In my coloring research, the option that would work best for icing is blueberries. Blend blueberries in a high powered blender and once they are well chopped add the icing and mix well.
All of my efforts were well worth it. The cake looked and tasted great. No one even suspected that I didn’t use regular food coloring and best of all my daughter couldn’t have been happier. She absolutely loved the cake!
Have you used food to color your cake icing? What has worked for you?
Tags: elmo cake, homemade, homemade food coloring
I tried making blue with blueberries and I found that it only turned purple no matter how many blueberries I added. What was your secret? Did you just use the juice? Because I also had blueberry skin flecks in the icing
It wasn’t a true blue like you said. But I wonder if we could get blueberry powder…I had much better luck with powdered forms.
Good idea!
Beautiful job!
thank you!!
I looked on amazon and they do have blueberry powder, I might try that out so I’ll let you know what happens!
I wonder how reducing the pureed produce would work? Just sticking it in a pot over low for 15-20 mins? Would thicken it up and make it a bit more potent.
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That is a good idea! That would take some of the water out of it and make the color stronger.
The cake is very nicely done! I actually find the food colouring adds a weird taste.. but maybe that’s just me. Did you fine that the macha adds a distinct taste to the icing that kids wouldn’t probably like?
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Thanks! I didn’t test out the matcha green tea powder because my project didn’t need a green.
any idea how to get the color black??
Good question, haven’t tried this one yet. Two things that come to mind are black licorice or black sesame seeds. I’ll ask this question to the readers over on my facebook page and see if anyone has tried this. If you haven’t already, visit the page here: https://www.facebook.com/theholisticmama
I read somewhere that after you boil black beans, the water can be simmered to condense it and that can be used as a alternative food coloring
Sounds like that might work. Thanks for sharing!
thank you so much for asking already!
I’m thinking of trying the matcha powder on a Lego Ninjago cake that my sons want for their birthday. I’m a little nervous, though. Any ides how much powder is required to ice a cake?
I would start with a very small amount like a teaspoon and see how the color looks and then adjust it for how dark you want the color (also taste test as you go). Good luck!! Let us know how it goes, I’d love to see a picture!