However, I've also been curious about natural food coloring options. A few months ago, I bought a set of India Tree Natural Decorating Colors from Amazon. For about $16, I received a three-bottle set of vegetable-based food coloring. Each bottle was .75 ounces, and the colors were advertised as red, yellow, and blue. Admittedly, natural dye is much more expensive than standard food coloring. On a per-ounce basis, natural dye costs at least three times as much as Wilton or Americolor. The natural dye also has a shelf life of just a few months; Wilton and Americolor typically last much longer. I stored my natural food coloring in the refrigerator to extend the shelf life as much as possible.
After a few rounds of experimentation, I thought it might be helpful to share my experience using the India Tree natural colorants. Please know that this post is not sponsored by India Tree, and I am not affiliated with India Tree in any way. Also, please note that this post is not intended to evaluate the health benefits of using natural food dyes versus standard food dyes. I do not have a background in medicine or food science, so I don't consider myself qualified to write about food dye from a science-y perspective. Nonetheless, I've tinted my fair share of royal icing and buttercream, so I can certainly write about my experience vis-à-vis decorating. How do natural dyes compare to conventional food dyes, such as those produced by Wilton, Americolor, or McCormick? What are the pros and cons from a decorating standpoint? What sort of colors can you produce using natural food dyes?
In the process, I also learned how to make my own all-natural sprinkles. Scroll to the end of the post for the recipe!
Tips for Decorating Sugar Cookies with Natural Dye:
- India Tree Red Food Coloring: can be used to create several pretty shades of pink royal icing. If used in high enough concentration, will produce a burgundy red, like the sprinkles used on the bunnies and flowers. Can also be blended with the yellow coloring to create a-peachy orange color (not pictured). When the red food coloring is used in flood icing, the flood icing will dry in about 6 hours. Color will be the same when wet as it is when dry.
- India Tree Yellow Food Coloring: regardless of the amount of yellow food coloring I used, I ended up with approximately the same shade of yellow. I also found that the yellow color intensified upon drying. For instance, the icing used for the ducks was a lemony butter yellow when wet. When dry, however, the color darkened to resemble an egg yolk. In addition, the yellow food coloring thinned out the royal icing and changed the consistency considerably. As a result, the yellow icing took much longer to dry than the pink icing. Whereas the pink icing dried in about 6 hours, the yellow icing took at least 12-15 hours.
- India Tree Blue Food Coloring: produces a dove gray color (again, not pictured -- sorry!). It's a lovely shade of gray, perhaps with a slight lavender undertone. It doesn't seem to mix well with the other colors, however. In addition, the gray flood icing never fully dried, even after being left out for two days.
- I attempted to use a wet-on-wet decorating technique (ie, the technique I used for these Starry Night sugar cookies) with natural dye. Although I didn't take pictures, the result wasn't great: the colors and designs bled together much more than they do when using conventional food dye.
- I mixed the India Tree dyes into a batch of Swiss meringue buttercream. The dyes mix in very nicely and the color distributes evenly without impacting the texture or consistency of the buttercream. I found that natural dye is much less concentrated than standard gel food coloring. In the cupcakes shown below, I used about one teaspoon of food dye for every cup of buttercream. That is a much higher ratio of food coloring to dye than I typically need when working with Wilton or Americolor. This is noteworthy because natural dye is already more expensive than standard dyes, on a price-per-ounce basis, even before taking the concentration into consideration.
- I was very pleased with the range of colors produced by the dyes: shades of creamy yellows, a pretty peach, and dusty rose. Obviously, I didn't expect to be able to create fire-engine red or cobalt blue with natural dye. That's just not possible, regardless of how much dye is used. However, natural dye works quite well if your goal is to create a lovely pastel palette.
And now for the best part: you can make your own natural sprinkles using vegetable-based food coloring. It's true! I had the best result with the red food coloring because it produced the most vibrant sprinkles. However, you can also create orange and yellow sprinkles. As for the sugar, turbinado sugar is my preference because of the large crystal granules.
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Total Time: 2 hours
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup turbinado sugar (also called raw sugar)
- 1/8-1/4 teaspoon all-natural food dye (such as India Tree)
- Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or wax paper.
- Place turbinado sugar and food dye into a quart-sized zip-top plastic bag. Vary the amount of dye according to how saturated you would like your sprinkles to be. Seal bag tightly. Use fingertips to rub dye into the sugar until food coloring is fully distributed.
- Spread your colored sugar granules onto the prepared baking pan. Allow to dry for approximately 2 hours. Use sprinkles immediately, or store in an airtight container.
Thanks for reading, folks! If you've used India Tree dyes or other natural food coloring, I'd love to hear your experiences!
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